LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Shelf... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SOME ASPECTS 



OF 



THE BLESSED LIFE, 



BY 



MARK GUY PEARSE, 

AUTHOR OF " THOUGHTS ON HOLINESS," ETC., ETC. 



P 




NEW YORK: 
PHILLIPS <& BUNT. 

CINCINNATI: 
CRAXSTOK & STOWE. 

1887. 



H\ 






■By/***** 

,-p37 



Copyright, 1887, by 

PHILLIPS & HUNT, 

New York. 




CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. How the Blessed Life Begins 5 

II. Meditation Illustrated 20 

III. Forgiveness 36 

IV. The Blood of Christ in Relation to the 

Blessed Life 58 

V. Communion 78 

VI. Communion. — Continued 107 

VII. " My Lord and my God " 124 

VIII. Consecrated and Transformed 140 

IX. Behind Him — Before Him 163 

X. Love 180 

XI. Rest 196 

XII. Trust, the Secret of Rest 210 



SOME ASPECTS 

OF THE 

BLESSED LIFE 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE BLESSED LIFE BEGINS. 

n Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the 
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the 
seat of the scornful : but his delight is in the law of the Lord ; 
and in his law doth he meditate day and night." — Psalm 
i. i, 2. 

Blessed — this is the first word of the book 
of Psalms, and this is the key-note of all its 
songs. Here, as frontispiece, is set the pict- 
ure of the blessed man, and here is the begin- 
ning of the blessed life. The after history 
follows it through many changes, through 
troubled days and gracious deliverance, until 
at last it reaches the land where sorrow and 
sighing are fled away, and, day and night, 
praise fills the holy temple. 

Very full of meaning is the background of 



6 So fiie Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

the picture. There are three groups, having 
little to do with each other yet bound to- 
gether by dreadful bonds; so that the first 
group is ever moving on to become the second, 
and the second goes on in turn to become the 
third. The first group is of men who are 
walking and talking ; as if of unsettled thoughts 
and of unsettled ways. The second group 
stands busied, as if thought and way were now 
decided and being carried out. Then the 
company is broken up, and the ungodly who 
walked in counsel, and the sinners who stood 
in their ways, sit, each by himself, in the seat 
of the scorner. 

Walking, standing, sitting— these are the 
three stages ; counsel, way, seat— -these are 
the three degrees. Ungodly — without God — 
this is the first character; sinners — actual 
transgressors and rebels — this is the second 
character; the third is the scorner; he ever 
sitteth alone. 

But are there any such hard and rigid lines 
as these marking off men from each other ? 
There are lights and shades of character ; 
good points that mingle with the evil ; is it 
not the mistake of theology to classify and la- 



Hoiv the Blessed Life Begins. 7 

bel our poor humanity as botanists do their 
dead and dried specimens ? Is not the fact 
rather that there are infinite varieties and 
play of circumstances ; a thousand influences 
that help and hinder men in a thousand dif- 
ferent ways ? Our nature is as various and as 
changeful as the sea. We look out on it some- 
times asleep in the sunshine, and so still that 
the winds hold their breath as if for fear of 
waking it, and sometimes black with storm 
and roaring furiously — a thing so cruel in its 
rage ! Here it creeps up the yellow sands, with 
curve and glassy edge, and there it thunders on 
the rocks, with burst of white foam flung 
against the sky. Yet down beneath the infi- 
nite variety — the currents and cross-currents, 
the waves that sweep onward and the roar 
and rattle of the backward rush — there is ever, 
unchanging, resistless, the power of the tide 
that draws the whole sea hither and thither. 
So is it that, away beneath the surface varieties 
of our humanity and force of circumstance, 
there is the power of the tide that draws us. 
We have the power to choose, but within 
that choice are laws which we cannot resist : 
that thoughts must grow to deeds, and deeds 



8 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

must strengthen into habits. We may choose 
our starting-point, but, having chosen it, of this 
be sure : that the walk makes the way, and 
the way decides the end. This division of 
men is an awful fact. The indifferent drift, 
drawn by the current that sets earthward and 
downward, going farther and farther away 
from the shore. The blessed find another 
power, that draws them upward and God- 
ward. 

There are three steps into the outer dark- 
ness : neglecting, rejecting, despising. 

Few things in the language are more pow- 
erful than the poem entitled " The Vision of 
Sin," in which Tennyson tracks some man of 
splendid gifts along this course and on to the 
seat of the scorner. Read it ; the first part 
slowly and aloud, so as to feel its music. Then 
let the soul be caught and swept along with 
the fierce current of its passionate utterances 
in the second part. Then comes the third 
part, a dreary monotone, full only of a cold, 
black, dreadful scorn — 

" A gray and gap-toothed man, as lean as death, 
Who slowly rode across a withered heath, 
And lighted at a ruined inn, and said : 



Hoiv the Blessed Life Begins. 9 

11 ' Fill the cup and fill the can ! 
Mingle madness, mingle scorn ! 
Dregs of life and lees of man.' " 

Then comes the hollow sneer at all things. 
And then the vision ends — 

" Below were men and horses pierced with worms, 
And slowly quickening into lower forms, 
By shards and scurf of salt and scum of dross, 
Old plash of rains, and refuse patched with moss. 

* * * * * 

And on the glimmering limits far withdrawn, 
God made himself an awful rose of dawn." 

This is the poetic rendering of the background 
of the picture. Then thinks the blessed man, 
as he looks out on these things, " There surely 
is another way than that, if I can but find it. 
God cannot have sent me into the world for 
that — cannot have put things together so as 
to make that the inevitable. O for some other 
counsel, some other companionship, which 
shall guide my steps into a way of peace ! 
What strong hand, what wise guide is there ? " 
Here he has found the answer — in the word 
of God. He sits, and upon his face there is 
thrown a reflected light, that comes from the 
open book that lies before him ; his delight is 



io Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he 
meditate day and night. Between himself 
and these others there comes the law of the 
Lord\ an authority mighty, majestic, supreme, 
yet not a burden or a hardship ; his delight 
is in the law of the Lord. 

The blessed life grows right up out of the 
word of God rightly used. The blessed man 
does not read it only, does not only search it, 
he meditates in it day and night. The law 
of the Most High God is accepted by him in 
all the completeness of its claim. And medi- 
tating in the word, he finds in turn all that 
constitutes the foundation of the blessed life. 
Contact with the solemn presence of Jehovah ; 
a holy fear and reverence before him ; a lowly 
obedience that waits listening to his voice, 
and heeding it earnestly ; a lofty ideal of life 
in its origin and purpose ; a blessed conscious- 
ness of an ever-ready help, almighty and most 
merciful ; a vision of holiness, kindling desire 
and inspiring hope ; a brave trust in God as 
ordering all things ; a patient and tender love 
for all men — these are the gifts and graces 
that wait for him, gifts which he can find in 
such rich fullness nowhere else, and which he 



How the Blessed Life Begins. 1 1 

can get at in no other way than by meditating 
in the word. 

Of this let us be well assured, that in the 
blesssd life this meditation is the starting-point. 
Whatever we need to see, to know, to be, be- 
gins in meditation on the word. In the world 
a man sees only the point of time we call the 
present. Away on every hand there lies the 
infinite, the eternal, but the eye sees only that 
which it is bent over. The man is in contact 
only with earth and his neighbors. All the 
consciousness of mind and heart, all the pow- 
ers of body and soul, are wrapped about the 
little business of the day. Hope and de- 
sire, which should soar into the heavens, are 
caged within these bars. To go up the mount 
of meditation is to pass out of narrow ways 
and busy tumult up into an ampler, purer air; 
out of dusty roads to dewy freshness. We 
begin then to see the true proportions of 
things. The present is lost, and the eternal 
unfolds itself. The city sleeps in mists below 
us, and the great heaven arches us. New fac- 
ulties begin to unfold themselves in the still- 
ness. There opens within us an eye that sees 
the unseen, an ear that hears other voices. 



12 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

And there, as of old, in the cool of the day, 
comes the very presence of God himself to 
walk and talk with his child. 

He cannot know the blessed life who does 
not secure for himself this leisure — to be still 
in God's presence ; to listen and long for his 
coming; to give up the soul to communion 
with him. Religion does not require that we 
should neglect any business which duty bids 
us do, rather it commends diligence. But re- 
ligion does require that we so manage our 
business as to secure this quiet, earnest, devout 
meditating in the law of the Lord. Let there 
be what there may besides this, there can be 
no substitute for it. Endless religious activi- 
ties, sermons, services, meetings, missions — 
these things make this quiet meditation only 
the more needful. About us on every side are 
specimens of the religious life that are stum- 
bling-blocks to the world and a perplexity to 
the Church. A religious life always on the 
verge of extinction ; a living death ; without 
any regular meals or " visible means of sup- 
port," it exists on scraps and crusts picked up 
anywhere ; it clothes itself in such scanty 
clothing as it can find ; it stands shivering, 



Hoiv the Blessed Life Begins. 1 3 

looking wistfully in at the world's fire, glad to 
warm itself when no one is looking, or when 
those about it are not too particular ; trying 
to snatch a little comfort as it lingers on the 
verge of the world's pleasure. It is the relig- 
ious life without any strong, habitual, whole- 
some meditation in the word. Again, there 
is a very common religious life that is for the 
most part peevish, querulous, grumbling ; 
wholly selfish, it is utterly incapable of any 
brave endurance, of any patient self-denial, 
without strength or beauty. It is the religious 
life that craves for stimulants. It lives on re- 
ligious excitement — tears, thrills, raptures. 
This, too, is the religious life without either 
the milk or the strong meat of the word ; it 
never meditates in the law of the Lord. We 
cannot lay too much stress upon it — we can- 
not too earnestly impress it upon ourselves. 
If this quiet, earnest, habitual meditation be 
lacking, we can know nothing of the blessed 
life. If this be ours, then is the blessed life 
begun. 

And do not let us think of this exercise as 
only a foundation on which we build. Much 
more than that — it is as the sap of the soul. 



14 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Meditation carries the purifying and repairing 
forces of the word throughout the whole 
nature. " Now ye are clean," said the Lord 
to his disciples ; " now ye are clean through 
the word which I have spoken unto you." The 
word of God cleanses the thoughts and the 
motives and the imagination. No life is lower 
or more hopeless than his in whom every sight 
is made to minister to a foul imagination. 
And, on the other hand, few shall walk the 
earth more safely than they whose minds are 
hung about with pure visions ; within whose 
crystal walls there entereth nothing that de- 
fileth or maketh unclean. Let meditation be 
the limner whose hands shall set in glowing 
colors the scenes of God's word about the 
" chambers of the imagery." 

Note further, that this meditation is not 
reverie — dreaming. It is so thinking about 
God, and so searching for him in the word, that 
it soon passes into the glow and blessedness of 
communion with him. We may venture, I 
think, to alter the word, and say : " His delight 
is in the love of the Lord, and in his love doth 
he meditate day and night." Sweet and hal- 
lowed companionship is ours with that best 



How the Blessed Life Begins. 15 

Friend and dearest Brother, who walks and 
talks with us whenever we meditate upon his 
word. Not alone we sit. "I will come unto 
you," is his promise. And this is the ap- 
pointed place ; here he bids us wait and look 
for himself. Beside this stream, whose waters 
make glad the city of God, and underneath this 
tree of life, is his trysting-place. And in that 
presence to lose the loneliness of life ; to for- 
get the fear and weakness ; to have him as 
our own ; to find the mind illumined as he 
opens the understanding ; to find the prom- 
ises so rich, and full, and personal, and pres- 
ent, as he opens the word ; and to have the 
faith emboldened till, like John, it leans on 
his bosom, and, with Thomas, calls him " My 
Lord and my God ; " to have in him the past 
hushed — a holy calm which no voice of con- 
demnation breaks ; to have in him the future 
all lit up with the glow of heaven's sunny dis- 
tance ; to find the love of all the heart drawn 
out and satisfied in him : this is blessedness 
indeed. So comes the blessed life. 

" He shall be like a tree." The word tree 
has the same source as the word truth — that 
which stands and abides. The blessed man 



1 6 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

is he who has got something to hold on with 
— and he has got something to hold on to. a A . 
tree planted." The roots are wrapped about 
the stones/ The principles have taken hold of 
God's everlasting truth. The ungodly are like 
the chaff — there is neither rest nor resting- 
place — whirled hither and thither, now up into 
the heavens, now trampled into the mud. O, 
the calm of the blessed man ! It may blow a 
hurricane, tossing the branches, sweeping the 
leaves, but the roots hold to the rocks. 
Where else can a man find the Abiding, and 
the Almighty, and the Authority that can 
give him so settled and sure a hold as this ? 
The word of the Lord abideth, and abideth 
for ever. Blessed indeed is it, amid the 
shifting things of life, its trembling uncertain- 
ties, its fleeting shadows, to get on to the 
granite of God's own truth for a foundation. 
"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers 
of water" — not only firmness and strength 
shall he find here ; not a commandment only, 
but a promise ; not only a law, but that which 
ministers to life. The word is a refreshment, 
a secret source of nourishment. Fierce heats 
may beat, and summer droughts may linger 



How the Blessed Life Begins. 17 

long", but the river of God is ever full of 
water. 

11 He bringeth forth his fruit in his season." 
A man suited for the times, who hath hope 
for the spring-time, and joy for the summer, 
and peace for the autumn, and patience for the 
winter. Like trees whereon the many grafts 
present a variety of fruits, some late, some 
early, he bringeth forth gentleness and brave 
faith, and all the year round the golden fruit 
of love and praise. This meditation on the 
word is the secret of blessedness. Strength, 
stability, and gentleness are the sure outcome 
of it. 

And beginning with the presence of God 
in the word, he goes forth to find that pres- 
ence in the world, to find that " law of the 
Lord " every-where and in every thing. God's 
voice meets him in the business and hallows it. 
His presence is felt in the pleasure, and his 
great law of love encompasses him with favor 
as with a shield. 

" His leaf also shall not wither." The tree 
has two ends, root and leaf. The root that 
abides unmoved in every season — firm as the 
ground in which it sets its hold ; and the leaf- 



1 8 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

end, sporting with the sunshine, dripping with 
the showers, whispering to the breeze, swayed 
by the lightest breath. The principles are the 
roots — they never yield ; but the blessed man 
has a thousand interests and sympathies with 
a thousand passing things — politics, pleasures, 
friendships, children ; and because the root is 
by the river, the furthest leaf is green ; because 
the principle is fixed, the outermost thing of 
life shall feel its wholesome power, and be 
kept in health and beauty. 

" Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The 
blessed man is ever a prosperous man, a rich 
man — the richest. He possesses who enjoys. 
He possesses who turns to truest account the 
opportunities of life. Sit down and think of 
an ideal prosperity. Is it not a calm, settled, 
contented life, without the madness of remorse, 
without consuming fear? Prosperity is his 
who has had the breath of God breathed over 
him with his " peace, be still." The spirit of 
God has brooded over him, and hushed the 
storm, and ended the confusion, and brought 
light and rest and gladness. 

In hope, in enjoyment, in memory, in sure 
confidence, a rich and prosperous man is he ; 



How the Blessed Life Begins. 19 

one whom kings might envy. Putting a con- 
science into his work, too, and doing least 
things as unto God, what he does shall be well 
done, and his work shall prosper. 

So he goes along his way as one having 
dominion ; walking the earth with a firm step, 
knowing whose world it is, and whose hand 
leads him, and whither he is going. He 
knows God's law, and God knows his way, and 
in that knowledge is the very center of rest, 
and the secret of Heaven's own blessedness. 



20 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER II. 

MEDITATION ILLUSTRATED. 

The blessed man whose portrait is given 
to us in the first Psalm meditateth in the law of 
the Lord. He does not read it only, does 
not content himself even with searching the 
Scriptures. That is the process of getting in 
at the life of the word, and getting the word 
into the life. Food has in itself a power of 
imparting vigour to our whole bodily nature : 
to the brain, and it thinks ; to the eye, and it 
sees ; to the heart, and it renews its far-reach- 
ing force. So the word is the " sincere milk," 
the " strong meat/' w T hich is able to minister 
to the whole of our spiritual life — to faith and 
love and peace and joy and service. But be- 
fore the food can feed us we must get in at its 
essence, and must get its essence into us ; this 
is the purpose of digestion and assimila- 
tion. We have to pass the word through 
a similar process, and this process is med- 
itation. 



Meditation Illustrated. 21 

Let us turn to the first chapter of Genesis 
and the first verse — " In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth." 

Now we have read our verse, what shall we 
do with it? He who reads the Bible, and 
nothing more, has done what he thinks to be 
his duty. Let him go on his way ; he will 
come to-morrow wondering where he read ; 
was it the first verse, or was it the second ? 
And he will often wonder how it is that he 
gets so little good from reading the Bible. 
It would save time and trouble — certainly it 
would save his doubts as to the place — if he 
were to look at the blank page at the end of 
the book, or even at the covers only. But 
people cannot feed themselves by looking into 
the baker's window. 

Better far than reading is searching, even 
if it is nothing more than taking the marginal 
references and turning to them. We may 
read without thinking, and often do. But in 
searching the Scriptures we get the word at 
least further in than our eyes. When we 
begin to search we transfer that for which we 
are looking into the thought. 

But searching industriously and dutifully 



22 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

may be a very dull, hard, dead exercise. A 
man may walk in Paradise itself, doing noth- 
ing else but busily botanizing, geologizing, col- 
lecting beetles, arranging and classifying, 
pressing or pinning his specimens. Our com- 
ing into Paradise is for something much better 
and more blessed than all that. We come in 
the cool of the day, watching and listening 
eagerly for Him who walketh there, and who 
calleth for his child. Then in his presence 
we breathe its pure air, we rest in its delicious 
shade, we eat its fruit, and in that waiting 
upon the Lord we renew our strength. 

We do not use the word aright until it 
becomes to us the very gate of our Father's 
house, through which we enter in the celestial 
city, into the very presence of the king. 
" These are they which testify of me," saith 
the Lord. God's word cannot be a dead 
word — a mummied history, a fossil. The 
breath of God must make it immortal. But 
we need the anointed eye, the opened ear, 
the understanding heart. So need we ever 
pray for this same moving of the Spirit of 
God upon us ; then light ministers to life and 
develops it. 



Meditation Illustrated. 23 

Do not be discouraged if at first the exer- 
cise seems hard, and not so rich in profit as 
you hoped. The art of meditating, like every 
other art, has to be learned. The process of 
reading, now so easy that you are unconscious 
of any effort in it, was once a tough matter of 
mastering mysterious signs ; of stumbling over 
troublesome letters, with tears, and fears that 
you would never be able to read as others 
could. The work is surely worth the effort. 
Here, indeed, the diligent soul shall be made 
fat. 

And do not suppose that meditation requires 
a long time alone. It must begin away in the 
inner chamber, alone with God. But thus 
begun, our thoughts will go on dwelling on the 
word, finding new truth and sipping fresh 
sweetness from it. Yet meditation is not study, 
nor is it dreaming. It is that passive condi- 
tion in which we open the doors and windows 
of the soul to the blessed influences that 
gather about us when we sit with the book 
before us and wait for the coming of the Lord. 
Meditation is not an act of the mind only, but 
of the whole man — so that the word stirs 
thought, and thought stirs prayer, and prayer 



24 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

passes into communion, and communion 
reveals new matter for meditation. 

As a specimen of meditating in the word, 
let us tunr to the passage we have chosen : 
"In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." So all begins with God, at 
once and immediately. Not from nature up 
to God am I to move, but from God down to 
nature. And so at the outset the word 
demands my faith. There is but one attitude 
for studying this first verse of Genesis, as for 
studying any part of the Scriptures; sitting 
with meekness, receiving the word with faith. 
Turn to the record of the triumphs of faith 
in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews. They 
begin here. " Through faith we understand 
that the worlds were framed by the word of 
God." It is the same faith that works the 
wonders that follow in the chapter — the faith 
that finds its source in Jesus Christ himself, 
" The Author and Finisher of our faith." 

It may seem at first sight as if it needed 
no faith to believe that God created the 
heaven and the earth. " Of course," you 
say, "we all believe that some one must have 
made it all, and that some one is God." No, 



Meditation Illustrated. 25 

you cannot find God thus — our gracious and 
loving Father. All you have got in that way 
is a far-off logical necessity, a great first cause, 
invented to complete the circle of our reason- 
ing. That is not God. I cannot kneel down 
to that first cause of things and speak to 
him. And not even logically does the suppo- 
sition of that first cause satisfy me. I find 
it as easy to think of eternal matter as of 
eternal spirit. No, we cannot by any such 
searching find out God. We make a mistake 
which has cost us very much when we come 
down from the high ground of our faith and 
say, " Yes, for spiritual things faith is needful, 
but in nature we can find God by reason. " 
Here, as every-where else, we can only find 
him by faith. 

Look at it as an historical fact. Have men 
ever received the story of the creation of the 
world by God except where faith has led 
them ? They who lived so much nearer the 
beginning of things, who saw the freshness of 
the Creator's touch on his handiwork, went 
away after a host of gods that they themselves 
had invented — logical first causes. The fath- 
ers of science and the founders of the arts 



26 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

stumbled at this fact because they understood 
it not by faith. 

But to us, to whom the Father has been 
revealed, how good it is to sit at his feet and 
to listen as he tells us of the beginning of 
things ! So, except we become as little chil- 
dren, we cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God here or elsewhere. 

Yet do not think for a moment that reason 
has no place in this art of meditation. They 
sin against God and against themselves who 
cast reason forth as one that mocketh. 
Reason can trace God, though only faith can 
find him. It is needful ever that reason go 
forth with faith, dwelling upon the tokens of 
his presence, showing the forces and beauties 
of creation; the wisdom and contrivance, the 
vastness and wonder. Reason can correct the 
interpretation that faith puts on her Lord's 
words ; but faith is ever the chosen bride to 
whom the King revealeth himself. Reason, 
like an old, wise tutor, goeth with faith, and 
teacheth her to see new meanings in the 
King's words ; new wonders in his gifts ; new 
graces in his dealings ; new glories in his 
character. But faith alone carries the sweet 



Meditation Illustrated. 2 7 

secret of the King's favor. Faith saith of him, 
he is mine. 

And as the story of the creation claims our 
faith, so it has a special help and blessing for 
our faith. 

" God created the heaven and the earth." See 
then, my soul, the completeness of his 
authority over thee and all things. We count 
that to be our own which is dependent upon 
our bounty or on our care, and we claim its 
service. We call that ours which we have 
bought with our money, or which we have 
fitted for our use. But how infinitely above 
all that is the proprietorship of the Creator ! 
Look up to him ! How completely am I thine, 

God, who created me and all things on 
which I depend ! Thine is my being, my 
every power thine. Thine is the air I 
breathe ; the light by which I see ; the food 

1 eat ; the clothes I wear. I walk upon thy 
earth, and thy hands uphold me and minister 
to me in ten thousand ways. Assert thy 
claim to me, for I would be wholly thine, and 
thine in every thing. 

" God created the heaven and the earth." 
So, then, I am a God-made man in a God-made 



28 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

world. My soul, give thanks that the devil 
had no finger in the making of any thing. Do 
not be afraid of the world now ; thy Father 
made it, and he can give thee grace to use it 
rightly and have dominion over it. Do not 
be afraid of thyself, for thou too art his handi- 
work. The devil did but put out of joint and 
service what God had made. What a contrast 
is the great utterance of this verse with the 
meanness and poverty of the tempter's first 
appearance in the next chaper but one ! Lift 
thyself up, then, God's own, with nothing 
within thee, nothing about thee, but that 
which he can hallow and sanctify and use. 
He who made us at the first understands us, 
and can set us right with ourselves and with 
all things, and can keep us right ; there- 
fore let all that is within us bless his holy 
name. 

" God created the heaven and the earth." 
O, my soul, what greatness, what safety, what 
blessedness are thine ! He who made all 
things is thy Father, and thou art his child. 
Think of his great power who setteth the sun 
in the heavens ; and he careth for thee ! 
Think of his wisdom and of his love, who 



Meditation Illustrated, 29 

arrangeth, controlleth, satisfieth all things. 
Go forth bravely into the world, knowing that 
the center of all things is thy Father ; God — 
their source and strength. Therefore, my 
soul, thou hast no room to fret or fear ; thou 
canst but trust and love and praise. 

" In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." So all begins — with God. 
What despair had settled upon the earth if 
she turned elsewhere than unto God ! Here 
is the great, black, shapeless earth, without 
form and void. A waste of waters, wrapped in 
darkness, tossed in ceaseless storm, without a 
ray of light, without a breath of life, a blot 
upon creation. 

Think of this desolate earth, looking away 
to some sister world, and hearing of its fair- 
ness — brilliantly shining, decked with beauty, 
where trees and flowers and rippling brooks 
make up a paradise, where happy life sports 
on the land, and through the air and sea. 
Earth turns to herself, where through the 
dreadful darkness the waves sweep restlessly, 
and wild winds moan as if God had forsaken 
her. What hope is there for her ? Can *she 
bid a sun to shine ? Can she set the water's 



30 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

bounds, or bring in the mystery of life ; won- 
drous and teeming life ? " No hope/' moans 
the poor earth, looking forth into its dark- 
ness. Stay, earth ! God, the almighty God, 
bends over thee. He decked thy sister 
worlds with beauty, and made them what 
they are. He can speak, and lo, all thy 
dreary waste shall become a paradise. 

Ah ! so do we despair if we look within ! 
All is dark, empty, desolate. Restless in our 
fierce desires, haunted with a sense of deep 
wants, what can we do ? We look away at 
the great lights above us. " Ah," we sigh 
within ourselves, " if I were only like such a 
one ; so good, so noble, so devoted ! But 
within me, alas, all is so cold, so dark, so 
empty ! " Stay ; for thee, my soul, God has 
revealed his will — his purpose. He comes 
to put forth his gracious power within 
us, that we may become complete and per- 
fected — made like unto the Son of God him- 
self. 

In the beginning God— Is God with us ? 
Then where shall we set the limits of our 
hope ? What are the bounds of his blessing ? 
Who shall say to the tide of his mercy, 



Meditation Illustrated. 31 

" Thus far and no farther ?" Let our begin- 
ning begin with God. 

Think, again, how this void and formless 
world appeals to its Creator. In the begin- 
ning he had created it, with its vast capaci- 
ties and stores of minerals and wealth. 
Could he leave it unfinished — without use or 
beauty, a flaw in the great universe ? Mutely 
it looked up to heaven, dumbly praying, 
almost upbraiding the hand that made it : 
"Wilt Thou, who hast begun to fashion me, 
fling me off forlorn, deserted — a thing at which 
thine enemies may mock, a thing to beget 
bewildering doubts among the very angels — 
as if thou hadst begun to build, and wearied 
of thy work or wert not able to finish it ? " 

And so, my soul, canst thou appeal to God : 
" Hast thou made us, O thou all-perfect 
Worker ? Hast thou made us for thyself, in 
thine own image and likeness ? And now, is 
it all to end in this poor round of eating, 
drinking, working, sleeping ? Is there noth- 
ing more for us than this being plagued by 
past failure, burdened with care, worried by 
the future ? Is there to be no light, no beauty, 
no gladness of life ? " 



32 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

So may my want and emptiness plead with 
God ; finding in themselves a promise, a 
claim, a prophecy of what our God is going to 
do for us. Only let us give ourselves right up 
to him, to let him have his own way with us, 
and then be quite sure of this : every kindling 
of noble desire, every thrill of great possibility, 
every flow of splendid hope, every dream of 
brave endurance and triumph, points on to 
what we shall be — somehow and somewhere. 
All things in heaven, all things on earth, all 
the moments, and memories, and influences, 
and hope within us, all things work together 
for good to them that love God, to them who 
are called according to his purpose ; for whom 
he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to 
be conformed to the image of his Son. 

And yet again : In all the processes of crea- 
tion God saw the paradise that should be. 

We think again of the poor earth, amid all 
the fires that wrought about her ; *the wild 
winds that howled and moaned over the lonely 
waste, as if no eye watched them, no hand 
could subdue them; great seas that swept 
and thundered furiously, like things that none 
could tame ; fierce fires that wrought within, 



Meditation Illustrated. 33 

fusing the solid rocks ; earthquakes that rent 
the hills, and forces that flung up the mount- 
ains, a thousand giant hands that tore and dug 
the troubled earth to its very center. " I 
dreamed of paradise/' it mutters very sadly, 
" and instead of that here is confusion only — 
destruction rampant every -where. Better 
surely that I had slept on than wake up to be 
the sport of all these cruel things — finding no 
rest day or night." 

But far on God saw the paradise that should 
be. It stood out clear before him, with 
grassy slope and fruitful grove, with flowers 
scenting all the air, and happy songs of birds ; 
with shining river, and the docile creatures, and 
all things above and below attesting that the 
earth was full of the glory of God. Then 
came the blessed Sabbath — God's rest and 
earth's. 

Ah ! the great Creator has his forces still, of 

pain and grief, of loss, of the mysteries of evil 

and grim death. Fear not, my soul. He 

directs, he controls, he shapes. Only let Him 

have his own way perfectly. He sees where 

all things lead. He knows what they all do, 

these great forces of his, by which he prepares 
3 



34 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

the new heaven and the new earth, and those 
who are to dwell therein. 

Is there not in this early history of man a 
trace of sadness, almost of failure ? " It repent- 
ed the Lord that he had made man. It grieved 
him at his heart." Then, gradually, the shadow 
begins to pass away. There comes in a 
tone more jubilant and hopeful, growing 
steadily until it reaches that exultant out- 
burst, " Glory to God in the highest, peace on 
earth, and goodwill toward men." Then 
breaks out the enthusiasm of humanity, and 
all leads straight on and up to the splendor of 
the triumph and coronation of the Apoca- 
lypse. Of course, with God there is no past, 
no future ; yet it does seem as if the coming 
in of the Son of man brought this new tone 
of hope. In this, my soul, be ever glad. 

Amid all the rebellion and degradation 
and failure of our humanity, there stands be- 
fore God the finished, perfect, proper man. 
. Down here the All-seeing looks on the stunted, 
dishonored, ruined work of his hands ; here is 
appalling sin, and greed, and cruelty, and 
miserable strife, and senseless pride, and foul 
lust, and horrible brutality. But there, at his 



Meditation Illustrated, 35 

right hand, there stands the other Man — the 
Man Christ Jesus — God's hope and satisfac- 
tion. And thus ever before him is the glorious 
token and promise of what our poor humanity- 
can be. There is the pattern Man, and now 
every force in the world and all the grace of 
God is at work to shape us in his glorious 
image and likeness. Therefore, my soul, let 
God have his own way with thee perfectly, 
exulting in this our sublime hope — " We shall 
be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." 



36 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER III. 

FORGIVENESS. 

THE THIRTY-SECOND PSALM. 

" Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is 
covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth 
not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." 

THIS is the second blessed. Thank God, 
there are two. The first tells of the man who 
keeps out of sin — " Blessed is the man that 
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor 
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in 
the seat of the scornful." In this the blessed 
man stands up on the sunny heights, up where 
birds sing and the sweet scent of flowers fills 
the air, and he is looking down into the black 
bed of the river ; over the steep precipices and 
jagged rocks, and past black hollows, down 
into the oozy river-bed. He shudders as he 
thinks of that depth and peril ; " Blessed is the 
man who is far up above that, in safety and 
gladness," saith he. If there were but one 



Forgiveness. 37 

" blessed " then must we despair. There is 
another ; listen to the music : " Blessed is he 
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is 
covered." This is the other height of the 
river. He stands and looks down into the 
black and dreadful depth, " I had gone 
down there, down in its peril ; but lo ! 
Thou hast taken me up out of the horrible 
pit and the miry clay, and thou hast set 
my feet upon a rock, and established my go- 
ings, and thou hast put a new song into 
my mouth, even of praise and thanksgiving." 
These two heights stand on either side of 
sin like the law and the gospel ; Sinai and 
Calvary. 

My brother, if the first blessedness cannot 
be ours — the blessedness of those who have 
kept the law — thank God, the second may. 
We may get up there ; into the sunlight and 
the golden glory and the singing of birds. 
This is the whole meaning of the gospel. The 
very heart and essence of all that God has 
done for us in the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ 
is this : to restore us who have fallen to the 
blessedness of this great deliverance, to the 
joy of a full salvation. 



38 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Here are three things for us to look at : 

The man who sits here. 

The way he got here. 

The blessedness he found here. 

i. The man who sits here. Those who do 
not know sometimes think this blessedness is 
for good people who have always been good ; 
people who call themselves sinners as a matter 
of course, because it sounds religious and is 
the proper thing to say, but they really have 
never done any harm ; gentle and loving and 
pure souls, who seem not to be plagued with 
ill-tempers and foul sins like others are. Ah ! 
look well at this man. Why, his soul is all 
notched and scarred with the wounds of many 
a fierce fight. He has sunk down into the 
black depths of sin as very few have ever 
done. He has sinned against light, and amid 
opportunities and advantages such as very few 
have ever had. Here is a man in whom sin 
burned like a fire of hell and set his soul in a 
blaze ; a man who to the fierceness of his pas- 
sion added a cool, calculating, cold-blooded, 
murderous arrangement for his crime that ag- 
gravated its horror a thousand times. 

No man this of gentle angel spirit, from whom 



Forgiveness. 39 

you turn half-angry and half-envious — " One 
of your saints. He does not know how I feel." 
Here is a man who has gone down as low into 
sin as any could go, and into sins as black and 
foul; and yet this is he who sits on this sunny 
height and sings of the blessedness of those 
whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose 
sin is covered. Blessed be God ! if this man 
has got there none need despair. 

And does somebody begin to think — " Just 
so ; this is one of your dreadful sinners whose 
life has blinded him to the horribleness of sin, 
and now, scarcely able to discern between 
right and wrong, with no standard above his 
own life, lightly forgetting what has been, he 
can rush in, untroubled, where angels fear to 
tread, and boast aloud of all kinds of privileges 
and possessions ?" No, indeed. Come near 
and listen to him. He knows not the sweets 
of forgiveness who has never known a bitter 
sorrow for sin. See how David heaps up 
words to tell what he thinks of it. It is a trans- 
gression — a going out of the way. It is a sin 
— a mistake, a missing the mark. It is iniquity 
— an injustice, a wrong. It is guile — a cheat- 
ing, a lie. Here on the height of forgive- 



4<3 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

ness, right under the Cross, he sees sin thus. 
He looks back and sees sin as a going out of the 
way. He stepped over the boundary ; it was 
.only a step, he thought he could easily come 
back again ; he would not go far, only just to 
see what was over there. So it began and so 
it went on ; day after day thoughts growing 
into acts, acts into habits, habits ever growing 
stronger. 

Then some day the man wakes. Where 
is he ? Clinging to the face of the preci- 
pice, he looks up. O, how different that 
way of the Lord appears now ! He used to 
think of it as a restriction, a being too par- 
ticular. But now he wakes to find innocence 
lost — all that might have been left behind — 
and the man who was going to be free is the 
helpless slave of his own sin. And he cannot 
get back ; cannot get up again. What memo- 
ries crowd about him! Thoughts in which 
God's way appears a way of pleasantness and 
all his paths as peace. O, the dewy freshness 
of that life, the blessed safety, the bright 
hopes, the good purposes ! A man cannot go 
far in sin without finding that he has gone out 
of his way. And he cannot get back again ; 



Forgiveness, 41 

he cannot climb up ; and down below there is 
that dreadful darkness and destruction. 

So sin misses the mark. The man thought 
this way led to happiness. Ah ! hell itself 
seems to laugh out its hideous mockery at 
him. Happiness — hanging here on this giddy 
height, and down there that awful darkness! 

And here he sees sin as an iniquity, a wrong, 
a robbery. God has created me, fitted and 
fashioned me to know him, to love him, to 
serve him. Life, reason, every faculty, the 
air I breathe is his, the light I see by, the 
earth I tread upon ; then has my whole life 
been a robbery. I have set myself— myself, 
who am his — to be my own lord and master. 
I have used these things as if they were mine 
— a wrong added to immensely by the great 
love of our God toward us and by his gener- 
ous purposes concerning us. Sin is a robbery. 
It is a hard word, but it is true. We rob God 
of his own. We rob the earth of the good ex- 
ample and influence that we were sent to give it. 
We rob God and man of love and truth and 
of all things blessed. We turn the very fac- 
ulties and gifts which he has given into the 
weapons with which we sin against him. O, 



42 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

sin is a hateful thing and must have an awful 
ending somewhere ! Nor is this all. Sin is a 
guile. It is a cheating, a lie. It is not only 
itself a deceiver, it is a deception. 

And yet, thank God, this is the man who 
comes to sit on this sunny height and sing of 
the blessedness of sin forgiven. 

2. How he got here. 

He had tried to get up to this height by the 
wrong path and failed. 

He had tried to hush up and cover his sins. 
I kept silence, he says. He tried to put on a 
jaunty indifference, as if it were nothing at all. 
He was no worse than others. If there was 
any blame it was not his. Blame his nature if 
you will, in which such fiery passions slept — he 
could not help that. Blame occasion and 
temptation ; these were answerable for what 
happened, not himself. But underneath that 
silence his very bones roared. No, he could 
not get rid of sin by denying it. There it was, 
in all its hideous nakedness, standing out glar- 
ing in the light of God. Memories met him 
and whispered at his ear. Faces rose up and 
came near and looked at him, dumbly clamor- 
ing against him. Fingers pointed at him. 



Forgiveness. 43 

Nature seemed allied with conscience, and as 
he passed there came strange voices, looks, 
hints, whispers, evil omens, as if all the world 
knew all about it and shrank from this dread- 
ful man. He knew within himself that he was 
another man, fallen, degraded, as if the Hand 
that tamed the evil things within him had been 
taken off. Above him was a God whom he 
feared to face. Beneath him was a blackness 
which he shuddered to think of; for in every 
man's heart sin means hell ; assuredly it can 
mean nothing else. No, he could not bury 
his sin ; as in that weird and tragic story in 
which the poet tells of the man who tried to 
bury his crime, but the black pool would not 
hide the secret, and there, in the dried-up 
river-bed, lay the victim. The winds swept 
away the leaves and flung the dead again into 
sight. We have no power to undo the past ; 
we cannot hush it up. Its voices go on and 
on, forever clamoring against us. We cannot 
bury it. It rises and pursues us. This height 
of blessedness cannot be reached by this path. 
" When I kept silence, my bones waxed old 
through my roaring." 

And yet you ask, perhaps, Does sin always 



44 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

mean that — anguish, and fear, and remorse? 
No, not always — not always. Only as long as 
the light of God is within the soul and the 
voice of God speaks to the man. That light 
may be put out. That voice may be silenced. 
And then the man shall come to laugh a wild, 
untroubled laugh at these things. Right and 
wrong have ceased to mean any thing. Love 
is lust and truth is but a name ; and purity is 
but a hypocrite who wears a white robe ; and 
friendship is only the disguise of selfishness. 
O, better a thousand times the madness that 
raves at the memory of sin than that. The 
eye that sees the truth is put out, the ear that 
hears the voice of God is stopped. Then the 
soul can go untroubled, unburdened. There 
is a life on earth so dark, so cold, so dead, so 
unconscious, so incapable of any moral sense 
that I would sooner crave the very fires of hell 
to create within me some sense of right and 
wrong than sink into that worst of deaths, that 
deepest of damnations. No, no, indeed, that 
path cannot lead up to this blessedness. 

And now he points out to us the path by 
which he got up here. " I acknowledged my 
sin unto Thee ; I said, I will confess my trans- 



Forgiveness. 45 

gressions unto the Lord." There was the 
starting-point, and much more than that ; he 
gave right in to God. That is every thing. 
Giving right in ; throwing off all excuses and 
honestly and earnestly going to God and tell- 
ing him all about it, that is the first step, 
and a long way up toward this blessedness. 
Why, David had worn his very religion as a 
cloak to cover up his sin. Throughout one 
dreadful year David came and went to the 
Temple services ; he knelt and confessed sin in 
formal words with the rest of the congrega- 
tion ; he stood and saw the sacrifice offered ; 
he watched the priest bearing the blood within 
the veil ; he waited as the priest came forth 
again and spake the word of absolution ; but 
underneath the cloak of his religion he carried 
the guilty secret, and all his soul was parched 
and consumed with a desert heat. No dew of 
blessing fell on him, no balm soothed his 
wounded spirit. God can do nothing with 
us when we come and go thus before him. 
We must give right in. Have you noticed it 
in the story of Ahab ? There was none like 
Ahab, saith the story, who did sell himself 
to commit wickedness. But frightened once 



46 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

by the threatening of the Lord, alarmed by 
the tone and manner of the prophet of fire, he 
put on sackcloth and went in before the Lord 
and walked humbly. Swift and glad then 
came the words from the Lord : " Seest thou 
how Ahab humbleth himself? The evil shall 
not come in his time," When we cast away 
excuses, explanations, apologies, falling at his 
feet with the cry, " I have sinned against 
heaven and in thy sight, and am no more 
worthy to be called thy son," then God, our 
gracious and loving Father, can let the full- 
ness of his love flow forth to us ; then he can 
fall upon the neck and bring us home with 
rejoicing ; then all the great preparation and 
provision of his mercy is our own. 

This is more than the first step ; it is every 
thing. If we thus give in to God he will 
teach us and lead us in the way we should go. 
He will unfold to us the mystery of repent- 
ance. He. will lift up the hand of our faith. 
He will reveal to us the great love of Calvary. 
He will bring us up to this height of blessed- 
ness until we too sit and sing in adoring won- 
der and joy, compassed about with songs of 
deliverance. 



Forgiveness. 47 

3. Let us see what else David found here 
besides forgiveness. The psalm does not end 
with singing about forgiveness ; there is a very 
different strain, and a very different subject, 
immediately and almost abruptly introduced. 

But, note well, the psalm does begin with 
forgiveness. Whatever else there may be for 
us it begins with that ; in knowing that our 
transgression is forgiven and our sin is cov- 
ered, and in knowing it with such a knowl- 
edge that we can sing of it with a triumphant 
joy. We must know that as surely as David 
did. You and I stand looking out into eter- 
nity with its great realities — the glories of 
heaven and the dreadful mystery of hell. In 
matters like this we must have more than an 
uncertain hope. I am not sure that God has 
given me any thing until I am quite sure that 
God has, for Christ's sake, forgiven my sin. 
Whatever else God may have for us must be- 
gin with that — a conscious forgiveness. And 
if David found this in the twilight of his time 
I may be sure of finding it in the blaze of Gos- 
pel noon. Come boldly and ask for it. Tell 
God that you cannot live without it. This 
blessedness is no vague thought ; no logical 



48 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

conclusion ; no inference ; it is a blessed per- 
suasion, wrought in the heart by the Holy 
Ghost given unto us, that the Son of God loved 
me and gave himself for me. It is the spirit 
of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 
It is the revelation of the loving Father to the 
hearts of his children. 

And notice, again, that whatever else David 
found here he makes very much of for- 
giveness. Do not let us ever come to think 
of forgiveness as a little or a light thing. 
Think what it means — the infinite sacrifice on 
the part of our Father, God, the gift of his 
Son, his only Son, the well-beloved. Think 
how it comes to us at no less a cost than the 
shame and agony and dreadful curse of our 
Lord and Saviour. It is ever God's unspeak- 
able gift — such a declaration of love, of conde- 
scension, of suffering, of deliverance, as must 
always amaze and overwhelm us. 

But though David begins with forgiveness, 
and makes very much of it, yet he does not 
end there. We may avail ourselves of this 
selah at the end of his song about forgiveness. 
It means, " Let us meditate here ; be still 
and think of these things. ,, And there is 



Forgiveness. 49 

room for meditation. It seems as if we are 
such poor, foolish, dim-eyed creatures that 
giving prominence to any truth, however 
important, is apt to hide from us other truths, 
and so we run into mistake. This grand and 
glorious doctrine of forgiveness — conscious, 
assured, triumphant forgiveness — which can- 
not be made too prominent, even it is apt to 
mislead unless we put a selah here. We must 
look into the truth carefully and look around 
it circumspectly. Young people, perhaps 
especially, hearing this doctrine of conversion 
insisted upon so often, are apt to think of it 
as such a mighty change that, even though 
they love and trust and serve Christ, yet they 
scarcely dare think of themselves as converted. 
Most certainly this is no reason why it should 
not be preached with the utmost plainness and 
urgency, but it is a reason why we should guard 
this point. Salvation is in Him ; not in convul- 
sions or earthquake ; not in terror or agonies ; 
not in swift and tremendous transformations. 
We have only to come to Christ and let him 
save us in his own way. Forgiveness is at the 
foot of His cross. Never mind how you were 
brought there — that is his work, not yours. 



50 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Then, again, this insistance upon forgiveness 
is apt to make others think that it is every- 
thing ; that when they have found that they 
have found all that there is ; there is nothing 
else left to think about or to desire. So is it 
that there are not a few who seem to make 
their whole religious life only a memory of their 
conversion ; that silenced every fear, that 
entitled them to every hope. Instead of liv- 
ing right out from that point the great, full, 
wealthy life of God, they are just content to 
draw a small percentage of peace and comfort 
from the recollection of their conversion. 
Beware of this mistake. Forgiveness is but 
the entrance-gate to the height and depth of 
blessedness that waits for us. We are not to 
sit in the porch, lame and begging ; we are to 
get up in Christ's name and go on, leaping 
and praising God, right into the holy temple. 

Then there are others who, hearing so much 
and so often of forgiveness, think they must 
come to God for that, and having that they 
must get on as well as they can, striving in 
their own strength to be as holy as they can. 
In this sense of it there is no such word as try 
in the Bible. God takes hold of our try and 



Forgiveness. 5 1 

makes it trust. Forgiveness is the begin- 
ning of a life of faith, and it is faith right 
on, step by step, and right up to the very 
end. 

And yet again, there are others with whom 
forgiveness means feeling happy. It is theirs 
if they can sing aloud, but it dies with the 
music. If they hear a sermon that stirs the 
soul and glows within them, then they think 
they are saved ; but when to-morrow's dull- 
ness comes they droop and fear. This is to turn 
things exactly upside down. David felt happy 
because he was forgiven, but he was not for- 
given because he felt happy. Here now the 
singing is hushed, but his forgiveness has not 
passed away with the song. Joy is the 
flower and fruit of faith, but faith is not dead 
because the flower falls off* sometimes ; joy, of 
necessity, wears itself away, and the springs 
of its renewal are not in us but in Christ, and 
we must go out of ourselves to find them. 

Now in his stillness, as David sits on the 
Mount of Blessedness, let us try to get at his 
thoughts. It is only when we have tasted the 
sweets of forgiveness, only when we have seen 
the great fullness of the love of God, that the 



52 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

deeper springs of repentance are unsealed 
within us. With eyes purged and a heart 
made tender we see then what sin means — 
what a dreadful reality it is. With every 
faculty touched and thrilled with the con- 
sciousness of God's great love to him David 
turns to think of himself. He recalls the pas- 
sions that sleep within him — the dreadful pos- 
sibilities of evil, so fierce, so revengeful. He 
thinks of the temptations that beset him — the 
strength of the world, the weakness of the 
flesh, the craft of the devil — and there sweeps 
over him a horror more black and dreadful 
than any hell. " O ! can I ever come to 
grieve that love again ! " 

Well may he be hushed. And all his soul 
goes out in great longing for something more 
than forgiveness. He, with his passionate 
nature melted by the goodness of God, feels 
that the very gift of his forgiveness has 
brought another, deeper want — a want that 
every forgiven heart must know. " I want, O 
my God, never, never, never to grieve thee 
again. And yet I am weakness itself, and all 
my way is full of hinderances ! " 

And again he sits in silence and looks forth 



Forgiveness. 53 

from the height of blessedness upon the way 
of his life. With tearful eyes he traces it and 
sees now that it has all been a transgression, a 
going out of the way, a constant wandering. 
He had cried, " Restore unto me the joy of 
Thy salvation, then will I teach transgressors 
thy ways." But now, ignorant, foolish, 
crushed by the blunders and mistakes of life, 
he is smitten through and through with a 
sense of helplessness, and he feels only 
how much he himself needs to be taught. 
How can he go forth again? He is afraid to 
step lest he should go astray ; so impulsive, 
so rash, so swept away by the feeling of the 
moment, with temptations that surge and 
storm about him. 

Then he lifts up those eyes of his and sighs 
from the overfull heart, " I want more than 
forgiveness, Lord ; forgiveness is a gift I can- 
not keep. I want deliverance, guidance, 
teaching, help, every thing ! M 

And then God bends over him tenderly and 
speaks with an infinite love — " Child, thou dost 
want Me, and I will never leave thee. I will 
instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou 
shalt go ; I will guide thee with mine eye." 



54 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

There, that is where forgiveness brings us ; 
into his presence, into such close intimacy, 
into such heart-communion with him. The 
great Jehovah, the Lord of heaven and earth, 
comes to us in gracious compassion as our 
helper and friend, our teacher and guide. 
The Cross of Christ is at the threshold of his 
banqueting chamber, whither he bringeth us, 
and his banner over us is love. Here we enter 
into the secret place of the Most High and 
abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 

Until then God is either afar off — a mere 
catechism definition, a logical necessity as the 
great First Cause of all things — or else he is 
the dreadful Judge against whom we have 
sinned. But now, in this height of forgive- 
ness, he himself cometh to us; he speaks to 
us ; he holds us dear to himself, and we look 
up with a new, glad confidence, and cry, 
Father ! This is the sweetest joy, the fullest 
blessedness, the richest privilege that waits 
for us on the Mount of Forgiveness — this 
heart-communion with God. And this is the 
purpose of our forgiveness. We, who were 
sometime afar off, are made nigh by the blood 
of Christ, that we may become the household 



Forgiveness. 55 

of God. Christ has redeemed us from the 
curse of the law that the bliss of paradise may 
be ours, as God walks and talks with his child. 

So may I go forth hand in hand with God ; 
my weakness lost in his might, my ignorance 
swallowed up in his wisdom ; no more lonely, 
no more unguided, no more wandering, but 
every-where God himself as my helper and 
friend. I can hold His hand and look out 
triumphantly over all the way. I can cling at 
his side, and defy all foes. I can go now into 
the trackless wilderness or through the murky 
night. I will instruct thee and teach thee, 
saith he. No want now, no weakness, but he 
is with me to supply my need. No pleasure 
but it finds a new joy in his presence ; no 
gain but it has a fuller worth in its consecra- 
tion to him. This is the glorious revelation 
of Calvary : the Father himself loveth you. 

" I will guide thee with mine eye. ,, Think 
what gracious familiarity with him this implies ; 
what watchfulness and gentle teachableness 
he shall give. I can guide him who is afar off 
by my hand ; I can guide him who is in dark- 
ness by my voice. But the promise is, " I will 
guide thee with mine eye ; M then must I be 



56 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, 

near him, ever looking up ; then must I walk 
in the light, as he is in the light, and my fel- 
lowship must be with the Father and with his 
Son Jesus Christ. Be not as the horse or the 
mule.; bit and bridle must control and guide 
them. Pray God to take the stubbornness and 
prejudice out of us ; pray God to take away 
the dull ear and the heavy eye, the slow per- 
ception and the sluggish consciousness. We 
want a heart that feels the hint of His desire, 
that vibrates at the breath of his bidding, that 
starts in glad obedience at the whisper of his 
will. The crowning glory of the height of 
forgiveness is more than deliverance. We 
learn a sweeter music and a deeper joy even 
than that mighty revelation of the Father. It 
is this union and communion with him, this 
tender susceptibility to his will, this bliss of 
his presence, this joy of his guidance — all the 
heaven of a pure love to him, a childlike trust, 
a glad obedience. 

\ And this new life is strong, and blessed, and 
triumphant, as we let the divine presence 
come into us. The forgiven man has no more 
strength in himself than he had before ; his 
strength is in God. Fling open wide the 



Forgiveness. 57 

thoughts, and let him fill the soul. " Lift up 
your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye 
everlasting doors ; and the King of Glory shall 
come in." 

Do not tarry singing of forgiveness only ; go 
on to find the blessed life in this glorious 
presence of thy Father, God. 



58 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST IN RELATION TO 
THE BLESSED LIFE. 

A GREAT writer, one of the foremost of the 
day, has declared that the world has done 
with a God who must be approached through 
blood. All of us are apt to judge " the world " 
by the little bit of it with which each comes 
into contact. Fortunately it does not need vast 
intellectual ability in order to qualify an 
opinion on this matter. We all of us have 
some degree of experience and observation ; 
and to many it is not a matter of argument, 
but of a blessed confidence, that never in any 
age were so many finding a conscious forgive- 
ness through Him in whom we have redemp- 
tion through his blood. Never before were so 
many walking in the light, and having fellow- 
ship one with another, and proving that the 
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from 
all sin. This God, " who must be approached 



The Blood of Christ. 59 

through blood/* is our own gracious and lov- 
ing Father. We are not thrust from Him by 
this way of access, but by it we who were 
sometime afar off are made nigh. 

Yet while this way of approach is to us a 
way of peace, the ground of our hope, the 
great voice of love itself, to others this " ap- 
proach through blood " is not only a stum- 
bling-block ; it is more than that : it is an idea 
shocking and revolting ; it sends them away 
from God as a grim and dreadful Being of 
whom they do not care to think. It is well 
for us to look boldly and earnestly into a doc- 
trine which to us is everything, and yet which 
is capable of being so easily turned into a very 
coarse and hideous objection against the truth. 
Honestly and fearlessly let us look into it, as 
those who know in whom we have believed 
and are persuaded that there is in him nothing 
which can be contrary to perfect love. 

It may perhaps be well to remind ourselves 
that in this matter, as perhaps in some others, 
the figurative and somewhat exaggerated lan- 
guage of hymns has much to answer for in 
creating a prejudice. But surely, if anywhere 
we may demand " a poetical license " in the 



60 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

use of words, it is in a case where they are the 
expression not only of a fervent imagination, 
but also of a great deliverance. Feelings that 
fill the soul with rapture burst the little 
phrases of a cruel precision, and can only find 
room in large utterances and figures which the 
cold literalist turns from contemptuously. To 
the literalist who pulls to pieces such words 
as these there is something very revolting in, 

" There is a fountain filled with blood 

Drawn from Immantiers veins ; 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 

Lose all their guilty stains." 

And again in the familiar words, 

" Sink into the purple flood ; 
Rise into the life of God ! " 

We are not going to bid these happy souls 
hold their peace because some stand by coldly 
criticising their songs. There are words that 
are to be interpreted only by the feelings that 
underlie them. Yet it is needful that the 
Scriptures be held responsible for the spirit 
only, and not for the figure of such hymns. 

With this single explanation, rather than 
apology, we have nothing else that need keep 



The Blood of Christ. 61 

us from looking fully into the doctrine of the 
blood. 

" Ye are come," says the writer of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, " to Jesus the mediator of a 
new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, 
that speaketh better things than that of Abel." 
The blood that speaketh. It seems first, per- 
haps, a strange, almost dreadful thing to say of 
Jesus. We know that blood has a voice ; we 
know how whole families and clans and coun- 
tries have been moved by it ; how the land 
has been stirred and thrilled by it ; how men 
have been gathered by it — resolute, unsparing, 
knit together and fired by that voice of blood. 
But it is a voice that cries only for jealousy, 
revenge, death. The word " blood" offends 
us ; the sight of it shocks us. 

How, then, can this ever come to be the 
voice by which God speaks to us — he who is 
love ? How can this ever be the voice by 
which we speak to God, who is our gracious 
and loving Father? Why should this be the 
voice that is heard throughout all worlds, and 
which goes sounding through all the ages: 
the voice of the blood of sprinkling? 

The voice is set here in contrast with " that 



62 Some Aspect of the Blessed Life. 

of Abel." The story of Abel may help us, 
perhaps, to hear and to understand this 
strange and mighty voice of " the blood that 
speaketh." 

Let us listen to the voice of Cain's offering. 
In process of time it came to pass that Cain 
brought an offering of the fruit of the ground 
unto the Lord. He brought flowers and fruits 
and roots. Here is a voice that God can 
listen to and delight in. What else could be 
so acceptable to God ? What has earth so fair 
and beautiful ? Of all voices, softest and 
sweetest, surely, is the voice of this offering. 
Fair forms and rich colors blend in perfect 
beauty. Flowers and trailing leaves, and ivy 
sprays and fronds of fern, all bright with the 
dew of God's own blessing, fresh from his own 
hand, breathing sweet fragrance as incense for 
his service — w r hat else could be so fitting for 
God's altar ? Here is no hint of suffering ; 
here is no dreadful tale of cruelty and blood- 
shed ; here, of all things, are those which the 
curse hath touched most lightly, and in Eden 
itself the rose and lily could scarcely have been 
lovelier. Here is no stain of passion, no touch 
of sin, no whisper of sorrow. What fairer 



The Blood of Christ. 63 

gift could God desire? What sweeter gift 
could earth afford ? 

And listen to the message which the voice 
of this offering spake from God to Cain. 
" See," they sang, " how God hath decked us 
in beauty. He who hath set his great sun in 
the heavens, and who holdeth up the pillars of 
the earth, hath shaped us, stem and leaf and bud 
and flower. He paints these colors ; he breathes 
this fragrance ; he giveth not bread alone, but 
thus he decks the earth with gladness. See 
in us the perfection of his power and skill. 
He hath so fitted sunshine and season, earth 
and seed, light and air and rain, he hath 
balanced all so delicately that these mighty 
forces meet in us and greet thee, Cain." 

And Cain heard the voice, and laid them on 
the altar of God, and they became in turn a 
voice that spoke from him to God : " O 
great Creator, here behold my gift ! In these 
I confess my dependence upon thy bounty. 
I accept and adore thy goodness, thy power, 
thy wisdom. I bow and bless thy name, and 
thus show forth my gratitude to Thee." 

And Abel brought of the firstlings of his 
flock. A lamb, the emblem of gentleness and 



64 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

purity. But there is here a constraint and fear 
that were altogether wanting in Cain's offer- 
ing : separated from the flock, led and bound 
to the altar, in no way has it the beauty and at- 
tractiveness of the other gift. This, too, was 
a voice that spake to Abel of God's goodness 
and care ; of power and wisdom and provi- 
dence ; of gracious and bountiful provision. 
And in this Abel found a voice that told of his 
dependence upon God and of his gratitude. 

And now if dependence and gratitude make 
up religion let each go down to his house 
justified. The service is over; each has 
worshiped and each has done well. But see! 
Abel lays his hand roughly on the struggling 
lamb. It is slain. The blood reddens the 
altar. The torn and bleeding victim lies upon 
the altar of God. Here is another voice — so 
sad, so terrible — the voice of blood! Cain's 
gift was beautiful. This is loathsome and 
dreadful ; every thing within us shrinks from 
it. What can this say from Abel to God — 
God the Creator, merciful and gracious, who 
careth tenderly for all that his hands have 
made ? To him every sight of suffering is a 
pain and grief. 



The Blood of Christ. 65 

Yet look again. Cain and his offering are 
rejected ; his fair gift is in vain. And Abel is 
accepted ; his bleeding gift avails. Over him 
there comes the sunny smile of God's favor, 
and he has the testimony that God is well 
pleased. 

What does it mean ? Is God, as some have 
dared to say, a fierce and dreadful being who 
can only be approached with sights of cruelty 
and suffering and death ? What can it mean? 
Let us ask the question, seeking to get in at 
the truth for ourselves. We cannot afford to 
trust traditions, to merely inherit our beliefs. 
We dare not drift along in vague dependence 
upon other people's opinions. Still less can we 
afford to keep dark thoughts locked up within 
us that we are afraid to face — thoughts that 
haunt the lonely places of the soul and mutter 
things that burden with fear and horror. Better 
no God at all than a God whom we cannot 
trust utterly, through and through, in deed 
and in every thing. I must have in God one 
whom I can love perfectly, in whom heart and 
mind and soul and strength can rest with a 
perfect satisfaction. Here, indeed, " the want 
of faith in aught is want of faith in all." 



66 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

But turn to the brothers again. Here Cain 
comes in haste. His face is filled with rage; 
the dark brows knit in fierce anger ; his eyes 
shooting lightnings; his lips bitten, or loosed 
only to mutter dreadful things. His hands 
are stained with blood, and blood bespatters 
his dress. And there, lying stretched on 
the ground, is Abel dead ; murdered. " Cain 
rose up against Abel his brother, and slew 
him." 

What now if Cain should come again, and 
with these stained fingers set up the dainty 
blossoms, and array the green leaves, and deck 
the altar with the fruits ? What now if he 
should stand listening to the sweet voice of 
these fair flowers, telling of goodness and wis- 
dom and skill ? What now if in these things 
such an one should seek a voice to utter quietly 
his dependence on God and his gratitude to 
him ? Every thing within us would be angry 
and indignant at such a sight. What has a 
wretch like this to do with flowers and fruit? 
Why, those hands would wither them. His 
touch would defile them. Flowers and fruit ! 
No ; earth shall yield him no more. Beneath 
his footsteps the very grass shall wither, leav- 



The Blood of Christ. 67 

ing a scarred and barren track where he has 
trodden. His very shadow shall blight all 
things sweet and beautiful. He is a murderer ; 
and if ever this man speak to God, and if ever 
God speak to him, it must be with another and 
very different voice from these. Ask yourself 
what voice can say to him what he ought to 
hear. The voice must be the voice of thunder ; 
of earthquake ; fierce fires. These are the 
voices for such an one : voices of destruction ; 
voices of terror; voices of justice and venge- 
ance. There is yet another voice, stern and 
dreadful : a voice that can speak to this man of 
God's most holy law ; that can make him see 
that his merit is death ; a voice that can fill 
him with shame and sorrow and heart-broken 
penitence, And yet a voice that may tell of 
love even for him ; a voice in which hope 
and mercy may speak, too. It is the voice of 
blood. 

But go back again to the moment when 
Cain stood at the altar bringing the first-fruits 
of the earth. In him then were all these 
dreadful possibilities of evil. In our sight sin 
is an act, but in God's sight it is a condition. 
While he stood there worshiping God saw 



68 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

the passion that slept in his heart, the mur- 
derous envy that lay coiled like a sleeping 
serpent. God looked right in upon these foul 
and awful things. How, then, could God speak 
to him or he to God with the voice of things 
sweet and fair like the flowers and fruit ? 

And so God looks upon us. Within us he 
sees our sin, an awful fact ; the black source of 
a thousand evil things. Our sin rises up like 
that dead Abel and thrusts us back from God. 
Ah ! we need another voice than that of flowers 
and fruit ; their beauty is mocked by the foul- 
ness which he sees within us. Our hot hands 
wither them ; our touch defiles them. And 
now there faces us this great question : What 
can God do with our sin ? 

Can he hush it up and make light of it ? 
That is to imperil all things. He is holy. 
The very strength of his love is holiness. 
There is no controversy in God. His holi- 
ness is not arrayed against his mercy nor his 
mercy against his holiness. His love is always 
holy. His holiness is always love. But what 
can holy love do with sin ? A love that could 
pass over sin would cease at once to be love. 
We could not trust it, could not honor it, 



The Blood of Christ. 69 

could not care to accept it. We should feel that 
there was a crack and flaw right down through 
the very foundation of the universe, which 
some day would hurl all things into a black 
and awful ruin. What, then, can God do with 
sin, unless he lets it work out its own natural 
and dreadful end — death ? 

If ever we who have sinned are to speak to 
God, if ever God, against whom we have 
sinned, is to speak to us, do we not feel that it 
must be in some way that shall make us see 
and feel the great righteousness against which 
we have sinned, and yet in which we may hear 
the tones of his great love ; a voice that shall 
lead us to a true submission and penitence, 
and yet which can proclaim the law satis- 
fied ; a voice that shall speak the past for- 
given, and yet in that forgiveness reveals a 
power and motive that helps us against sin for 
the future ? 

This is the voice of blood. 

We hear all this faintly but unmistakably in 
the voice of Abel's offering: " Thou art holy, 
O God ! Here I acknowledge thy righteous- 
ness. I have sinned against Thy holiness. 
Here I confess my sin, and here with peni- 



JO Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

tence I acknowledge my merit is death. 
Here I accept thy great love, which has pro- 
vided one in whom the world is to find salva- 
tion. Thus do I declare my faith in Him, the 
* Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of 
the world/ And here, in thy forgiveness and 
gracious acceptance, I acknowledge thy claim 
upon my love and service, and I find a 
strength to do thy holy will." 

Once more, in the light of that sacrifice, let 
us ask ourselves : What can God do with our 
sin? That is the only answer. And let us 
go on to ask three other questions which stare 
the ages in the face as the great problems of 
all time. 

How can we see our sin in the light of God's 
holiness and not for ever despair? 

Or, if forgiven, how can we find forgiveness 
of our sin without coming to think carelessly 
of that which is so easily forgiven ? 

Or yet, again, if making much of our for- 
giveness, how can we ever come to find our- 
selves living righteously without falling into 
that consciousness of our superiority which is 
the root of all Phariseeism ? To these three 
questions is there any other answer than this : 



The Blood of Christ. J I 

Through the blood of sprinkling, that speak- 
eth better things than that of Abel? 

Here we may find the reason why so many 
do not find in religion the satisfaction that 
they need. They sit under the word, and yet 
it never becomes a living reality. They pray, 
and yet they never have any sense of the 
divine favor. They are devout and reverent, 
yet they cannot find rest and peace. They 
have a religion, but it is not a religion they 
would like to die with. There is no deliver- 
ance, no triumph, no light of his countenance 
filling them with joy and a conscious victory. 
The power of sin is not broken. They wonder 
why. They almost feel tempted to mock at 
those who do find in the service of God the 
aim and delight of their whole life. And yet 
they are sincere in their prayers. They kneel 
and confess their dependence upon Him ; they 
acknowledge his greatness, and thank him for 
his gifts, and offer him of their substance, 
and yet they have no conscious acceptance 
with him. Can we not put our finger upon 
the cause of this failure? They have stopped 
short of the blood of sprinkling. They have 
got exactly as far as Cain got — and no farther. 



J2 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

All else is of no avail until we reach this : " Ye 
are come. ... to the blood of sprinkling, that 
speaketh," says the apostle here. Come, then, 
as those that have sinned, let us draw near 
and listen to this wondrous voice of the blood. 

" Behold the Lamb of God/' who is given 
as the sacrifice for our sins; " who beareth 
away the sin of the world." Sit here and 
listen with the ear of thine heart to this voice 
of the blood. O my soul, how deep and ter- 
rible a reality is thy sin, if to save thee 
from its curse the Son of God must come 
from heaven, the only begotten, who dwelt in 
the bosom of the Father ! See, he hangeth 
upon the cross, the King of glory ; who can 
tell the depths of this bitter shame, who can 
ever know the awful agony of that hour ? 
Torn, mocked, deserted, accursed — thus hath 
he brought out and set up the dreadful mean- 
ing of my sin. 

There are moments when no words can tell 
the horror with which men turn from some 
glimpse of the hateful possibilities of evil that 
lie within them. But alas, there are other 
times when all the consciousness of sin is 
numbed, paralyzed, dead. Sin is but a tradi- 



The Blcod of Christ. ;j 

tion, a word, a thing scarcely noticed and 
easily forgotten. O how do we need this 
mighty voice of the blood that speaketh to us 
— so awful, so persistent, so unsparing ; for- 
ever uttering, not in word only, but in deed 
and in truth, what our sin is! The measure 
of my sin, its length and breadth, its height 
and depth, is in the cross of Christ. The 
voice of God's judgment meets me there. 
There and there only can I hear what God 
saith of sin. 

And yet, come again and listen. Not of 
condemnation only does this voice of the 
blood speak. It tells of the exceeding sinful- 
ness of sin, and yet it tells of love — infinite, 
amazing, overwhelming love. How dear 
must I be to the heart of the Father, if for me 
he has given his Son, his only Son, his well 
beloved ! What a desire to 5ave is this ! 
How strong and yearning, how deep and 
eager is the love which speaks to me in the 
gift of such a sacrifice and such a Saviour ! 
Sin black and awful, yet love immense and 
infinite, is the proclamation of this wondrous 
voice of the blood. O blessed be God forever 
for this voice, that soundeth through all time 



74 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

and to all men a great message of entreaty and 
tenderest compassion ! Herein is love. Here 
is the fountain of hope, here is the voice that 
speaketh of the black dreadfulness of sin ; 
here is the terrible manifestation of what our 
sin is, and yet here is the great pledge and 
measure of God's love, unchangeable, eternal, 
infinite. 

Again, that " voice of the blood " speaks of 
the holy law satisfied. Death is the penalty 
of sin. " The wages of sin is death." I hear 
this proclaimed, as nothing else could proclaim 
it, in this great sacrifice. But as I bow at the 
cross I hear another voice. That sacrifice 
declares the righteousness of God satisfied : 
4i Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of 
the law, being made a curse for us." 

Here is the mighty and prevailing voice that 
forever speaks to God for me. In that cross I 
see the black vision of my sin in all its dread- 
fulness. There I see God's judgment and 
sentence upon my sin, but there, too, I find 
my representative, my substitute. Christ 
hath suffered, " the just for the unjust, that he 
might bring 'us to God," In him " we have 
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness 



The Blood of Christ. 75 

of sins." The voice of the blood is the eter- 
nal declaration of God's righteousness for the 
remission of sins; " That he might be just, 
and the justifier of him which believeth in 
Jesus." The voice of the blood is no more a 
dreadful clamor for vengeance and punish- 
ment ; it is the " fear not " of God to the 
heart of the world. It comes amid our dark- 
ness and striving, our fear and helplessness, 
and speaketh, " Peace, be still," and there is 
a great calm. All the condemning voice of 
the past is hushed : " There is no condemna- 
tion to them which are in Christ Jesus." 

Do not let us care to inquire too curiously 
as to how the blood of Christ atones for our 
sins. Let us remember that our conceptions 
of the claims and majesty of God's righteous- 
ness are very dim. We can and do find in the 
blood of sprinkling that which we need. What 
if there lie around and about the cross depths 
of mystery that we cannot know as yet ; is it 
not the more divine thereby, and not the less 
so ? Perhaps we cannot exactly put into any 
words the way in which the death of Christ 
becomes the ground of our forgiveness. We 
do know, and join our testimony with thousands 



j6 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

of others, that coming to the blood of sprink- 
ling we find not a grim and dreadful being, 
but the blessed way to the heart of our Father, 
God. We find there a joy and deliverance, a 
conscious forgiveness and a testimony of ac- 
ceptance, such as the whole world longs for, 
and which the world can find nowhere else. 
And assuredly experience is as good and 
sound an evidence in matters of religion as it 
is in any thing else. 

There and there only is the power by 
which we were redeemed from the curse of 
the law. There and there only is the power 
by which the flesh is crucified with the lusts 
thereof. There and there only are we cru- 
cified to the world, and the world is crucified 
to us. 

So, then, if the blessed life begins in a clear 
and complete deliverance from the past — a 
new life without condemnation or fear, its very 
starting-point is in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. " Without shedding of blood 
there is no remission. " 

If the blessed life means a tender sensitive- 
ness to sin, an abhorrence of it as loathsome, 
where else can that be created or sustained 



The Blood of Christ. yj 

save in the cross of Christ ? There is the 
awful sentence and end of sin. 

If the blessed life has its strength in a per- 
fect surrender of self to the will of God, the 
sacrifice and death of self for the glory of God 
and the good of others, then here in the 
cross of Christ alone is the example, ever vivid 
and mighty, that summons us to such a life ; 
here and here only are the obligation and the 
inspiration of the blessed life. 

If the blessed life is, above all else, a great 
love to God — a love that masters and subdues 
us for his service ; that draws out all the love 
of our hearts and compels the devotion of our 
whole lives — where else can we find the birth- 
place of such love, except in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ ? 

Therefore, neither in this world nor in the 
world to come will we have done with this way of 
approach unto God through the precious blood 
of Christ. Here and hereafter it shall be the 
strength of our hope, the source of our joy, 
the theme of our adoring love. Never old, 
never worn out : " And they sung a new song, 
saying, Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us 
to God by thy blood." 



78 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER V. 

COMMUNION. 

THE NINETY- FIRST PSALM. 

" He that dvvelleth in the secret place of the Most High 
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." 

OUR gracious God has many visitors, and 
has a kindly welcome for all who come to 
him. Some come as his poor dependents, 
knocking at the back door and seeking to get 
their basket filled with the scraps they need. 
Well, these shall not be sent empty away, 
but, alas, how much they lose ! They have 
his gifts, but they never see his face, they 
never hear his voice, they never know his 
heart. 

Some are his servants. They dwell with 
him. They seek to know his Avill, and set 
themselves to do it earnestly. They com- 
mune with him. And yet they do not dwell in 
the innermost circle. Having done his work 
tkey turn to their own. There are limits and 
divisions of interest. 



Communion. 79 

Some are his children. They are always 
with him. They live in his presence : they 
are ever at home with him. They know his. 
heart. Unto them he saith, " Son, thou art 
ever with me, and all that I have is thine." 

Pauper, servant, son — which are we? This 
psalm is the song of one who dwells with God. 
The psalm of the Son, from which the tempter 
fetched the quotation with which he feath- 
ered his arrow : " If thou be the Son of God ; 
... for it is written . . . " He whose heart 
can sing this song has found in God a rest, a 
satisfaction, a delight, a home. 

It is supposed by many that this psalm was 
written by Moses. Certainly there are in it allu- 
sions that would come most naturally from one 
in his circumstances. This first verse gathers a 
fullness of new meaning as we think of it com- 
ing from his lips. We think of him in the 
wilderness, wearied with a people who seemed 
incapable of entering into any worthy thought 
of their high calling, vexed at the delays and 
wanderings; wearied, too, by the unchanging 
dreariness of the desert. He, a whole heaven 
above the people in the nobility of his spirit, 
turns from all this to find comfort in God, and 






So Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

prays, " I beseech thee, show me thy glory." 
There is given the gracious answer, " Behold, 
there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand 
upon a rock. ... I will put thee in a cleft of 
the rock. I will make all my goodness pass 
before thee, and I will proclaim the name of 
the Lord before thee." We think of him 
going up into the secret place of the Most 
High — away from the multitude into the un- 
broken calm and stillness ; up from the dreary 
monotony of the desert into the Mount of the 
Lord, with new beauties opening before him 
at every step ; up from the languid heat into 
the fresh wind of the early morning ; on to 
where God himself waits with all-gracious wel- 
come, and then into the cave. And there the 
Lord, the Lord God, passed by and proclaimed 
himself. And there Moses finds God as his 
own — " my God " — and puts Israel into his 
keeping, and prays him to come and make his 
abode among them. 

That mountain height, that secret place, is 
within our reach. It is Calvary. There are 
the clefts of the rock wherein we hide while 
God comes down to make his goodness pass 
before us. Then may we draw near to say of 



Communion. 8 1 

him, "My God," and to find in him our 
dwelling-place and home. 

Our home in God. Let the thought sink 
down into the heart and become a desire, a 
purpose, a possession. It is for us, for each one 
of us, to know it if we will ; to go up out of the 
way of the wilderness, and to find our rest and 
dwelling-place in him. Outside are biting 
winds and bitter rains ; outside are stony 
ways and stony faces too ; outside are the 
fleeting hopes that find no place to light upon, 
wishes that are swiftly swept away by fear ; 
outside all that suggests hurry, and toil, and 
want, and uncertainty ; a hungry world, not 
knowing what it seeks, but believing that its 
satisfaction lies ever a little farther on. To 
step out of this into the secret place of the 
Most High — what is it? To find one's self no 
more a bubble flung on lawless seas; no more 
a fallen leaf, the sport of wintry winds; but 
round and about us are the everlasting arms, 
and we rest against the very heart of our 
Father, God ; to be known through and 
through — all the weakness and the want, the 
wasted past, the dreadful possibilities of evil 
within us — and yet to be loved infinitely ; to 



82 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

be known in all our dull thought of things, 
our clumsy failure, our quick forgetfulness, 
our shallowness and cowardice, and yet to 
hold as our own such exceeding precious 
promises of blessedness ; to pass out of the 
din and the grinding wheels of earth, with its 
mystery of want and pain and sorrow, and to 
rest in a great assurance of pity and help for 
every one — that behind all things and running 
through and through all things is the love of 
the Father, and that all things are set to this 
one end : to help men up to higher life, no 
more the uncertain, but a very terra firma; 
lying down in the shadow of the Eternal ; feel- 
ing that waves may toss far down below us, 
and tides may come and go, but this sure 
rock of our resting-place abideth for ever and 
ever; to have the hallowing hush of God's 
own presence, the soothing, strengthening 
touch of his own hand, the heaven of his smile 
and favor — this is to dwell in the secret place 
of the Most High. To let ourselves and ours 
go with a glad abandonment right into the 
keeping of his love ; to live with a childlike 
freedom from care, or fear, or want, knowing 
that he careth for us ; to be loosed from ambi- 



Communion. 83 

tion ; to have no fierce and jealous eagerness, 
and yet to be stirred with a great desire and 
a fixed endeavor to know his will and to please 
him perfectly — this is to dwell in his secret 
place. And there, hidden in the cleft of the 
rock, it is ours to look out on all things, find- 
ing every-where the revelation of his goodness, 
and hearing evermore that voice proclaiming 
" The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gra- 
cious." 

11 He that dwelleth . . . shall abide." These 
words denote the settled and unchanging. This 
is no occasional privilege, as when the high 
priest once a year went into the holiest of all. 
It is no exceptional thing — the festival of some 
rare day. No vision is it, shortlived. Not a 
rift in the clouds, a passing glimpse of a glory 
that is to be hereafter. We dwell, and he 
abides. God is to us what we will let him be. 
He changeth not. Where we are bold to 
come there may we be bold to stay. He will 
not go away; nor need we. If we will dwell 
there, there will he abide. 

A secret place. He only that seeketh shall 
find it. A blessedness of which any man may 
say, " It shall be mine, and I will search dili- 



84 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

gently until I find it;" but they shall never 
know it who think they can drift to heaven 
with languid desires and lofty longings that 
come to nothing. Nor is it for those who can 
put heart and soul into every thing else, 
sticking at it until they do succeed, but in 
religion are content with theories and notions, 
with mere creeds and services. Yet every 
one that seeketh findeth. It is an open secret 
to the searcher. These further heights of 
blessedness are not a kind of Alpine climbing, 
requiring great endurance, and much skill, 
and resolute courage. Seek — never mind how 
clumsily, if only the heart be in it. Seek. 
God sends forth his light and truth ; they 
wait for us at the foot of the holy hill. Seek 
and ye shall find. Men lose these things not 
because they do not understand them, and 
not because they do not desire them, but 
because they do not seek them. 

And then, seeking and finding the secret 
place, its full blessedness is for those only who 
will make themselves at home in it. Custom 
and blessed familiarity are needful to home. 
" Is this our home ? M said my little one to 
me as we drove up to the door of a new 



Communion. 85 

abode. " No," said I, " not yet. It is our 
house — it will be our home, I hope, when we 
get used to it." 

Soul, the secret of finding thy home in God 
is to be much at home with him. 

" I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and 
my fortress : my God ; in him will I trust." 

Here the reader sighs, thinking, "Ah, it is 
a long way up to such blessedness as that. 
I — poor, dull, unworthy I — cannot presume to 
seek such a privilege." But look : the scene 
changes altogether. Away at the entrance of 
the valley there stands the castle ; the high 
towers from which the banners wave; the 
ramparts where valiant men in armor pace 
watchfully; the buttressed walls, and moat 
and guarded entrance ; and within these are 
the royal apartments where dwells the king 
with his lords and knights. We, alas ! are 
afar off. Not for us a home like that. But 
some day the foe sweeps across the country, 
bringing ruin and death wherever they come. 
Behind them the sky is ruddy with the fires of 
the destroyer. Then poor peasants fly from 
their lowly homesteads — fathers with lads and 
maidens, mothers with their little ones. 



86 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Whither shall these helpless ones hurry? 
Why, to the castle, of course. What is the 
good of a refuge if it is only for valiant knights 
and mighty men? It is on purpose for the 
weak, the little, the helpless. The foe shall 
find only massive walls and the deep moat, 
and soldiers who stand ready to receive them ; 
but for these helpless ones there is a postern 
gate, low down within their reach, where they 
can find entrance and safety, 

A home in God! I may fear to say so 
much as that. But here is the door within 
my reach : " I will say of the Lord, he is my 
refuge." Think not that our glorious God is 
for communion with the holy angels only, a 
home for lofty saints and heroes in his service. 
He stoops to thee and me; and because we are 
weak and helpless and in peril we can find in 
him our refuge. 

Here may each begin. " My refuge." Think 
of the foes that pursue us. Out of that past 
come the troops of the things undone, half 
done, ill done. The passing wish. The evil 
thought, the hasty word, the influence for ill, 
these things cry out against us and follow us. 
That past cannot be buried, cannot be hushed; 



Communion. 87 

or hidden ; it lives and chases us. There 
is a refuge and fortress. It is in Christ the 
Lord. He hath borne our sins in his own 
body on the tree. He by the grace of God 
hath tasted death for every man. He hath 
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us. " He is my refuge." A 
refuge even as when the great rock in the des- 
ert lifts itself up and catches the fierceness of 
the noonday sun, the fiery darts, that it may 
cast its cool and refreshing shade over those 
who rest in its hollow places ; or as when 
the little fishing boats lie safe within the 
harbor, because the rocky cliffs rise up and 
catch the beat of furious seas that dash with 
thunder and hurl the showers of spray far up 
the sides ; or as when the massive walls re- 
ceive the spear and arrow and beat them back 
dinted and broken to the ground, that the 
weak ones within the stronghold may be safe. 
So hath the Lord, who is my refuge, given 
himself for my deliverance and safety. He 
hath met and by his own death he hath for 
ever silenced my foes. And now " there is no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus." Over all the past there goes the hush 



88 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

of God's forgiveness. " I will say of the Lord, 
he is my refuge." 

But do not put a full stop there. At once 
there comes the next step: " my refuge and 
fortress." A refuge is the place in which I hide 
from my sins. A fortress is where I turn to 
fight them. Make the Lord thy refuge, and 
then at once up the steps and on to the ram- 
parts. "And my fortress." Let me run from 
my sins till I find my Lord ; but in him, as my 
impregnable stronghold, let me defy them all. 
There, soul, is the secret of victory. Outside 
the refuge thou art ruined, but inside the 
fortress thou art conquerer. Sin may summon 
thee to surrender, and sound the trumpet, and 
bend the bow, and talk exceeding proudly, 
but my Lord is my fortress. Then let me 
boldly claim the victory. In him it is mine to 
live with a defiance of my foes. It is ours to 
put the glorious Lord himself — his grace and 
his power — as the walls of the fortress between 
us and our sins. Ill-temper, hasty speech, fret- 
ting, foreboding, pride, envy, indolence, love of 
the world, of gain, of self, and every other evil 
thing, now may we claim the victory over them 
all since the Lord is our fortress ! Of thyself 



Communion. 89 

and in thyself nothing, willing to be weak, a 
very coward outside the refuge ; but in him 
daring to expect and to claim a constant con- 
quest, since the Lord is thy helper. " Without 
me ye can do nothing." Right gladly do we 
acknowledge it, gracious Master. Thou art 
our refuge. But we can do all things through 
Christ who strengthened us ; thou art our 
fortress. 

" I will say of the Lord " — there is much in 
that. We lose much because it lives only in 
suggestion, in vague thought, in passing desire. 
The truth wants to be grasped with a resolute 
grip ; to be fixed and riveted by a word that 
gathers up all the soul and utters it. Say it 
now: I — there must be the personal assertion ; 
I will — there must be resoluteness ; I will say 
— let there be the determined expression ; 
I will say of the Lord, he is my — there must 
be a personal claiming and possession. Say 
it, then, soul ; say it yet again ; keep saying it. 
To speak the thing is often to turn a thought 
into desire, and desire into purpose, and pur- 
pose itself into half possession. Here and now 
it may be into full possession. " I will say of 
the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress." 



90 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

But the full stop is not yet. From the ram- 
parts I am led within the royal apartments. 
And, lo ! the Lord bringeth me into the ban- 
queting chamber, and there, beneath the ban- 
ner of his love, I learn to rest in the secret 
place, and abiding under the shadow of the 
Almighty. I, even I, am bold to say, my God. 

" My God." Each heart must unlock for it- 
self the wonderful wealth and fullness that are 
hidden in these words. We cannot come to 
say them as the result of cold argument or 
exposition. These can only point us on 
toward the secret place. This glad possession 
is born only of communion, heart union, as 
when God made his goodness to pass before 
Moses it was that he cried, " My Lord ! " It 
comes of contact, as when the finger rested on 
the very wound-print, and the hand was laid 
upon that sacred side ; then Thomas's soul 
leapt forth with this glad utterance, " My Lord, 
and my God ! " It is a knowledge of a love in 
which God gives himself to me — all mine. 
And I by the sweet constraint of love's own 
interchange give myself up to him. My God ! 
It is to find in him my perfect satisfaction, to 
delight in his law, to serve him in the al- 



Communion. 91 

mightiness of his help, to lie down in his care, 
to dwell in the safety and blessedness of his 
presence, and to look up for the gladness of a 
communion with him face to face, as a man 
speaketh unto his friend. 

* My God." Words that seem too daring 
for any human lips: too great a boast for any 
man. And yet I may speak them. I, who found 
in him but yesterday my refuge, and who 
came seeking in him only my fortress, may 
boldly claim his fullness for my own. I can 
lose my fear and feebleness and want in him, 
like a drop of rain that falls into the sea ; and 
I possess him in his infinite fullness. Come, 
timid child, wilt thou say it? — My God. 
Tremblingly, perhaps, at first, but say it. Ah, 
if thou wilt hide in the cleft of the rock, and 
wait and muse, the words shall well up from 
thine heart. Thou canst say of the Lord, "He 
is my refuge." Tarry here, then, and gaze 
upon the Crucified. Thinkest thou that the 
cross is the glorious token of how God once 
loved the world ; as if it swept and surged 
about the world, a very flood of love, that left 
here its mark and measure, while the love 
itself was withdrawn into the bosom of our 



92 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

God ? Nay, the cross is the token, the pledge, 
the measure of an everlasting love. That, in 
all its agony of desire and unutterable eager- 
ness to hetp and to bless, is the declaration of 
how God feels toward the world to-day. 
" The world." Dost thou sigh, thinking, 
" Yes, to the world. A pity moved by a mass 
of suffering in which I am but one ! " Nay ! 
God's love is perftct. If he love thee at all, 
he can only love thee with all his love. Love 
cannot be shared. It is all in all or not at 
all. It is every-thing or nothing. Our love 
— misled, deceived, too passionate and then 
forgetful — partakes of human frailty ; yet is it 
a thing almost divine. Like God, it is infinite, 
it is immortal, defying force. Think, then, of 
the great, deep, perfect love of God — all thine ; 
as if he had no other heart on which to bestow 
his love. " My God," thou mayest say right 
boldly, " as if I were his only child. His 
power mine, all mine ; as if the everlasting 
arms were only for my protection. His wis- 
dom mine, as if it were nothing but the guid- 
ance of my steps. He mine, as if I were his 
universe and he my God." 

But is not this the essence of selfishness, of 



Communion. 93 

greediness, forgetting others in the vastness 
of my claim? Ah, this is the glory of our 
God, Here greediness is consecrated. Here 
am I exhorted to covet earnestly, for covet- 
ousness itself is ennobled. The more of earth 
I have, the less others may call their own ; 
but the more of God I have, the more shall 
others have as theirs. Love and truth and 
goodness cannot be hoarded. They live by 
blessing like God's sun by shining. 

" In him will I trust " — of course, and irre- 
sistibly. Faith cannot be forced ; it must 
be won. It is a poor trust that lives by argu- 
ment. Here is faith's birthplace and home — 
in knowing Him. il I know whom I have 
believed, and am persuaded that he is able 
to keep" — that is the cry of faith. With 
such mighty power and such tender care 
about us we trust because we cannot help it ; 
without effort ; almost without consciousness 
of trusting, lying down in the everlasting arms 
of love. 

So, then, I will give myself with a glad aban- 
donment to him who is my God. All things 
that come I will take from him, in every thing 
sure of his love. All things I have I will use 



94 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

for him, making his good things better by his 
service. 

" Let good or ill befall, 

It must be good for me : 
Secure of haying thee in all, 

Of having all in thee." 

Surely he skall deliver thee. Now follows 
a description of the safety of our home. 
When we dwell in the secret place of the Most 
High, the hospitality of our Host, the honor of 
our King, the tender care of our Father, the 
glory of our God are alike involved in our 
safety. Harm might come to us from the 
strength of the enemy ; or through the weak- 
ness of our defense;' or through the careless- 
ness of our guardian. It is good to lie in our 
stronghold, and to call up possibilities of evil 
only to see them become impossibilities the 
moment we turn to our God. When Omnip- 
otence protects, what foe can prevail ? Care- 
lessness ! nay, indeed; never was love so 
watchful, so eager, so constant as that which 
encompasseth us. He will not suffer thy foot 
to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not 
slumber. 

But there is another source of peril. It is 



Communion. 95 

not in him, but in ourselves ; in our foolish 
wanderings, in our presumption, our unwatch- 
fulness. Then comes at once an illustration 
of His care and a suggestion of our danger. 
" He shall deliver thee from the snare of the 
fowler; " that is, from the little things, the 
hidden traps and nets that are set for us. 
This first, as if this deliverance were most 
needful. Great sins frighten where little 
snares entangle. It is easier to escape the 
huntsman's arrow than the crafty lure. And 
where are they not set? Riches and poverty, 
sickness and strength, prosperity and adver- 
sity, friendship and loneliness, the work and the 
want of it — each has its snare, wherein not 
only are the unwary caught, but the wise and 
the watchful sometimes fall a prey. Little 
things, mere threads, hardly worth guarding 
against — yet are they strong enough to hold 
us and hinder us, and may be the beginning 
of our destruction. 

See, here is the lark caught in the net — its 
foot is tangled in the cord. Twist and strug- 
gle and flutter as it may, it cannot rise ; its 
very efforts only make it more hopelessly 
fixed. There far above it stretches the fair 



g6 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

blue heaven, and it spreads its wings and longs 
to soar. From the grove there is the music 
of the happy birds that delight in their free- 
dom ; but, it can only utter a dreary note of 
distress. Now there comes one who sees it 
and with tender pity hastens to its rescue. 
He folds the bird gently within his hand, and 
then with skillful fingers disentangles and 
untwists the net and the poor captive is loosed 
from the snare. " Foolish bird," saith he, " thou 
shouldest be more watchful." And then he 
opens his hand. At once it flies far into the 
heavens, and now, sure of its safety, it sings 
as it soars, and soars as it sings, as if its pas- 
sionate gladness and gratitude can find no 
sufficient outlet. 

How often is it so with us ! We, too, are 
caught in the snare of the fowler ; little things 
that tie and hold us to the earth. The de- 
sires go out after God, but we linger far below. 
We hear the joy of others who dwell in the 
light of his countenance ; but we are threatened 
with evil and filled with fear. Some foolish 
overeagerness, some depression of mind or 
body t some neglect, some unwatchfulness, some 
ill-will has caught us and holds us down. O, 



Communion. 97 

blessed be that gracious Lord whose quick 
eye seeth our need ; who stoopeth so low to 
loose us from the snare ; whose tender patience 
and ready skill do set us free once more, so 
that we soar and sing again far up in the light 
at heaven's very gate. " He restoreth my 
soul." " He shall deliver thee from the snare 
of the fowler/* 

" He shall deliver thee . . . from the noisome 
pestilence/* The vast ; the invisible ; that 
which wraps itself about a nation, enfolding it 
with death ; coming noiseless as the night ; 
lurking in the air ; which no skill can detect, 
which no care can avoid ; finding its prey alike 
in him who hurries on his duty, and in him 
who is the slave of sin. Here, too, fear not. 
Go bravely on. Wealth, wisdom, strength, can 
avail us nothing amid such peril; yet need 
we fear no evil. With a trustful heart and a 
glad confidence look up to thy God ; he knows, 
he watches, he leads, he protects. He shall 
deliver thee. 

" He shall cover thee with his feathers, and 
under his wings shalt thou trust/' Our gracious 
God would wrap us round with his love. He 
would have us rest, not only in safety, but in 



98 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

such snugness and cosiness of shelter — under 
his feathers. I went once over one of our prin- 
cipal fortifications ; past terraces of artillery, 
up guarded heights, here and there looking 
out on the blue waters where lay the monster 
iron-clads asleep : past troops of soldiers with 
roll of drum and bugle-call. " Here," I 
thought, " is safety : these heights that no en- 
emy could scale, and thus securely protected ; 
and yet, who would care to live here, amid 
these cannons, where trees and flowers are out 
of place, and the only sound is of military 
music and the orders of the officers? " Then, 
suddenly, I came upon a little cottage, almost 
hidden amid luxurious growth of flowers ; rose, 
and jessamine, and honeysuckle clustered 
about the door, and hung around the windows ; 
the narrow beds were full of gayer colors ; 
the canary, hung in the deep porch, rang out 
its merriest music ; and from within the house 
there came the happy laughter of the children. 
This just took hold of the whole scene and 
transformed it. It turned the grim hardness 
of the fortifications into a blessed safety. It 
was a warm, living heart in the midst of the 
defenses. I recall it as a poor earthly sugges- 



Communion. 99 

tion of what is set forth here. Here is the 
Omnipotence that girds us round about with 
perfect safety. But here is not power only. 
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and un- 
der his wings " shalt thou trust." Ah ! such a 
home is there in the heart of this power; such 
a tender love. This is where God would have 
us — in where we can ever feel the pulsing of 
his love toward us; compassed about with 
favor as with a shield. 

" His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." 
As if all this power and this wondrous love 
were not enough, the whole is yet further 
guarded by his truth. Thy hiding-place is 
within the warmth and snugness of his love ; 
about thee is Almighty power as thy defense ; 
and then, as if to make assurance doubly sure, 
he gives thee the pledge of his own truth. 
Our gracious God seems to hand over to us the 
title-deeds that convey this glorious freehold 
to us, and duly signs and seals it. His honor 
binds him evermore to us, and binds us ever- 
more to him. 

O soul, be still and meditate upon this. 
Slowly count up what great store of blessedness 
thou hast in thy God. We trip lightly over 



IOO Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

the words — even words sublime as these may 
come to be but familiar sounds ; or we linger 
over the beauty, the majesty, the sublimity of 
the sentiment as if these truths, like the shin- 
ing stars, were to be admired only, not pos- 
sessed. We need to make these words our 
own, our very own, in soberest prose and liv- 
ing fact just true to the letter for us. All this 
is what God, even thy God, would be to thee. 
All this is what thou mayest know. This is 
where thou mayest dwell. Of this loftiest 
height and of this innermost blessedness may 
it be spoken, " Him that cometh unto me I 
will in no wise cast out." 

" Thou shalt not be afraid. " Very wonderful, 
too, is this note of the song, and very blessed. 
God not only saves us from our foes, but he 
saves us from our fears. We sometimes laugh 
at the silly fears of our little ones, who mag- 
nify their fancies into dreadful evils. Think, 
then, what our silly fears must be in the sight 
of our God. And how dishonoring, since he 
he has given us such assurances to encourage 
our trust. And yet our God stoops to soothe 
away our fears. He laughs at the threats of 
his enemies, and hath them in derision ; but 



Communion. 101 

never at the fears of his children. Do you 
remember when God had pledged to Gideon 
the destruction of the Midian host, how ten- 
der a word he spake to the brave captain? 
" If thou fear, go thou with Phurah thy ser- 
vant down to the host : and thou shalt hear 
what they say." Then away under cover of 
the darkness crept Gideon and his companion. 
And as they moved about among the sleep- 
ing soldiers it came to pass that one lifted 
himself from his uneasy slumbers and told his 
fellow of his dream. " Such a strange dream/' 
said he : " I dreamt that a cake of barley bread 
tumbled into the host of Midian, and it came 
unto a tent and smote it that it fell." Then 
he to whom the dreamer told his dream an- 
swered, with troubled voice : " This is nothing 
else but the sword of Gideon ; for into his hand 
hath God delivered Midian and all his host." 
Then Gideon's heart leaped up to God with a 
great thanksgiving. He came back girt with 
new strength — " Arise," said he, " for the Lord 
hath delivered Midian into your hands ! " 

Surely here is the very completeness of all 
tender love, that does not only guard us thus 
from our foes, but stoops to quiet thus our 



102 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

foolish fears. Fear not then, soul, to take thy 
fears to Him, who knows well how to cure 
them. If he have borne thy sins, he will bear 
with thy fears ; and his tender love is glad to 
give us this deliverance. 

" Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by 
night ; nor for the arrow that flieth by day." 
By night he is ever watchful; by day he is 
swift* to deliver. For the night the Lord is a 
sun ; for the arrow he is a shield. Fear not, 
then, the pestilence that walketh in darkness, 
nor the destruction that wasteth at noonday. 

The vastness of the evil brings no peril to 
the man who is in God. Under his shadow, 
that which threatens must strike through the 
Most High before it can reach us. A thousand 
shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy 
right hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee. 

How grand a thing is this simple, untroub- 
led trust in God ! How powerless in its pres- 
ence is every foe ! When Omnipotence is our 
defense with what a majestic confidence may 
we come and go ! The destroyer is spell- 
bound. Rage is harmless, like winds that 
sweep and howl among the rocks ; fierce pur- 
poses are turned aside, " like lightning dead- 



Communion. 103 

ened by the sea." Has earth a sublimer hero- 
ism than that of David ; of Daniel ; of the 
three Hebrew children; of St. Paul? Thank 
God, this is the miracle for all time : this 
calm triumph of faith. It is the glorious gift 
held out to each one of us. The wonder is 
that with such promises these victories of 
faith are so uncommon. Yet none can have 
moved much among earnest religious people, 
or have read the records of Christians during 
times of persecution, without being familiar 
with blessed instances of this heroism of trust. 

Here is a bit of nineteenth-century heroism 
as sublime and triumphant as any thing of 
the past. It is from the Life of Joel Bulu, a 
Fijian missionary :* 

" In the early morning we heard the war- 
trumpets sounding from three different 
points ; and our people gathered together in 
the open space in front of my house, waiting 
for the battle. I went out to them, and cried 
with a loud voice, ' Sit down. Let every man 
sit down. Let them see that we do not want 
to fight. Sit down, and wait for the will of 
God. Then, if they fire upon us, let us spring 

*Autobiograph\j of Joel Bulxi. Edited by the Rev. G. S. Rowe. 



104 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

to our feet and fight for the lives which he 
has given us/ 

" So they all sat down in silence, each man 
with his weapon lying across his knees ; and 
the blast of the war-trumpets sounded nearer 
and nearer, louder and ever louder, until the 
enemy appeared in sight on the edge of the 
forest — a great multitude of heathen warriors, 
all painted and armed for war. When they 
saw us, they set up a shrill cry ; and as with 
a confused noise they came forward toward 
us, I spoke to our people, encouraging them. 
' Sit still/ said I, 'the Lord will fight for us/ 
But when Abraham saw a number of the 
heathen leaving the main body, and making a 
circuit as if to get round to the back of our 
house, then he ran to prevent them, and cer- 
tain of the young men also ran with him ; but 
I called them back and made them sit down 
again with the others. ' Abraham/ said I, 
i do you not know that we die to-day — you 
and I, and the rest of us here? Why, then, 
should you go forth to meet your death, and 
to bring it upon yourself? Let the Lord bring 
it upon us, and it will be well. Perhaps even 
now he will save us alive/ 



Communion. 105 

" And the heathen came up to where we 
were sitting. Those who had guns pointed 
them at us; those who were armed with clubs 
raised them to strike ; the spearmen poised 
their spears, making them quiver before our 
eyes ; and the bowmen bent their bows ; but 
no shot was fired, no blow was struck, no spear 
was thrown, and no arrow flew in our midst. 
What held them back I cannot say : this only 
I know, that for a long while they stood there 
threatening us with their weapons of war, 
while we sat in silence speaking never a 
word ; but our hearts were crying to the Lord 
for help, and he heard their cry. At length, 
after the enemy had been for a long time thus 
threatening us, and we expecting every moment 
death at their hands, I saw a chief coming 
toward us through the town with a whale's 
tooth in his hand. Walking forward between 
us and the heathen, he sat down and presented 
the tooth to them, begging that we might 
live, and that there might be no fighting. 
And when the chiefs had heard his words, 
they drew off their men to a distance, and sat 
down holding a council. 

"After a while two old chiefs from the 



io6 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

heathen war-party came to me bringing with 
them a whale's tooth as a token of peace ; and 
sitting down before me in my house, they 
kissed my hands, sniffing at them, after our 
fashion in Fiji and Tonga, one taking one 
hand, and one the other. 

" ' Joel/ said they, ' we know this day that 
you are a true man, and that your God is a 
great Gcd. Wonderful are the things which 
we have seen to-day, for there was rage in our 
hearts, and it was in our minds to kill you all ; 
but when we came to where you were sitting 
in silence on the ground, all the strength 
departed from our hands, and we could do 
nothing against you. It is you, Joel, who 
have saved us alive. If w r e had killed you, it 
w r ould have been shedding our own blood, for 
are not all your people our kinsfolk ? There- 
fore are Ave sent to ask pardon for our anger, 
to thank you for your long-suffering, and to 
tell you that we shall never forget your love 
to us. Let this tooth of a fish be the burying 
of all ill-will between us. Know this, more- 
over, that if any man hereafter does you any 
harm, he shall be clubbed, whosoever he be, 
and an oven shall be his grave/ ' 



Communion. 107 



CHAPTER VI. 

COMMUNION. — CONTINUED. 

THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM. 

14 Because thou hast made the Lord . . . thy habitation." 

Here, again, the blessedness is his, and 
only his, who finds his home in God. " The 
Most High thy habitation/' Where do we 
live ? Where the heart is. And where is the 
heart ? For the heart ever draws with it all 
else. The thoughts loosed from other things 
do surely gravitate to the home of the heart. 
Where, then, is thy heart ? for there is thy 
home. Is it in the business ? Do the thoughts 
go of their own accord, and because they are 
free, away to the planning, and purchasing, 
and counting up of profit ? Is it in the life of 
pleasure that is being arranged for? Is it 
away with the children, and amid home 
cares? Of course the thoughts must visit 
these things, and spend whole days with them, 
exactly as a man goes away to work ; but 



108 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

then, when the work is over, he goes home. 
Do we find our home in these things, sending 
our thoughts on errands up to God for bless- 
ing, and guidance, and care, and then coming 
back to these again as the home of the heart ? 
Or do we visit these things only, and then 
take them with us to find our home in God — 
to lie down in his care; and to draw all 
about us and ours the glorious safety of his 
presence ? 

We go home without arrangement : we 
plan our visits and then go home because 
they are over. Duty, want, a host of things, 
lead us forth elsewhere ; but the heart takes 
us home. Blessed, most blessed, is he whose 
thoughts pass up to God not because they are 
driven like a fisherman's craft swept by the 
fierceness of the storm; not because they are 
forced by want or fear ; not because they are 
led by the hand of duty, but because God is 
his habitation and his home. Loosed from 
other things, the thoughts go home for rest. 
In God the blessed man finds the love that 
welcomes ; there is the sunny place, there care 
is loosed and toil forgotten, there is the 
joyous freedom, the happy calm, the rest, 



Communion. 109 

and renewing of our strength — at home with 
God. 

" There shall no evil befall thee." How can 
it ? Trust in God makes us conquerors over 
sin, and turns all other evil into good. It is 
only because we do not take all things as 
from God, permitted by his love and wisdom 
and controlled by his power, that we can 
think of ill in anything. That cannot be an 
evil which does a man good, nor that a loss 
which brings him gain, nor that a grief which 
crowns him with new kingliness and power 
for further conquest. To him who trusts in 
God, adversity carries in its bony hand the 
golden gifts of patience and courage ; and 
pain itself ennobles with endurance and 
refines with the sweet graces of submission. 
That he who loves us with so wise and infinite 
a love permits what comes transforms it into 
good. Blessed indeed is he who learns to 
find in the dungeon the hid treasures of dark- 
ness ; and in the deep waters the pearls that 
shall enrich and deck us through eternity. 

So then, soul, be not hasty in setting up thy 
judgment as to what is good or evil. Life's 
vexations come not so much from evil things 



I io Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

as from an evil heart, that knows not what is 
good, and frets because its foolish fancies do 
not find indulgence. No wisely loving father 
would let his little one decide as to life's 
good and evil things — or where would lessons 
be, and the discipline that fits for manhood ? 
We, dimly seeing at the best, see far enough 
to choose for them. Let our Father, gracious 
and all-seeing, choose for us. That which he 
sends is only good, and the fancied good that 
he sends not we are better without. Our 
truest, fullest and deepest good — life's very 
best — is to let him have his own way with us 
perfectly, and life's only evil is to resent, to 
hinder, to mistake his will ; forever stands 
the cross of Christ, the great assurance of a 
love that nothing can gainsay — a love that is 
all ours, and ours in every thing. Of this be 
sure : if we could see all things as our Father 
sees them, we should bless him for doing as 
he does. When the day breaks and the 
shadows flee away we shall see it all, and then 
will we make it the theme of heaven's music. 
Till then we will rest in his love. He is ours, 
and we are his ; and his joy is ever in our 
blessedness. 



Communion. ill 

" For he shall give his angels charge over 
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They 
shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou 
dash thy foot against a stone. ,, 

So, then, do not fear to go down from this 
high mount of the Lord to thy ways in the 
world no matter how commonplace and dull 
they may be, whether rough or smooth, whether 
lonely or crowded ; though busied with com- 
mon wants, burdened with common cares, go 
forth with a brave heart and an earnest soul 
into thy ways in the daily life ; thy commun- 
ion with God is not to make thee too digni- 
fied for walking in the by-ways of life, even 
over stony roads. Rather shall that commun- 
ion make these common places dignified 
indeed by his regard, and by the escort he 
sends with thee, even as his presence and the 
angels made the stony Bethel of old into a 
very gate of heaven. He turns the very highest 
good to evil who suffers heavenly-mindedness 
to make him indolent or careless in minding 
his duty upon earth — which, if we but think of 
it rightly, is but another name for dishonesty, 
cheating both God and the neighbor. Com- 
munion with God is the fittest preparation for 



112 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

all that a man can have to do in the world ; 
and doing well and thoroughly whatever must 
be done is the fittest preparation for further 
communion. He who bids us leave the gift 
on the altar and be reconciled to our brother 
would have us go back and be reconciled to 
any duty with which we may have quarreled. 
Saul's sacrifice is undone by the bleating and 
bellowing without ; it intrudes upon the holy 
service and disturbs it. So into God's ears 
comes the clamor of every work undone, half- 
done, ill-done, and jars upon the hour of prayer. 
However near to heaven we may dwell, it is 
to fit us for perfect service in all our ways on 
earth. If God's angels go with thee, soul, see 
that thy life be in keeping with thy company. 
He who walks with courtiers is careful to be 
courteous, and suits his very attire and his 
whole demeanor accordingly. The angels 
claim for their High Master's sake that in 
every thing we be faithful, and patient, and 
brotherly ; not over-eager for the world, as 
having our treasure in him ; and yet not de- 
spising it, as belonging to him. Count no duty 
too little, no round of life too small, no work 
too low if it come in thy way, since God thinks 



Communion. 113 

so much of it as to send his angels to guard 
thee in it ; and be sure thou dost not murmur 
at thy way, or think it a hard one, if the holy 
angels are willing to go with thee. Thy mur- 
murings will be but an ill accompaniment for 
their music. 

" They shall bear thee up in their hands." 
It is another token of God's gracious care 
concerning us and our safety. His angels — 
think how at times the presence of some one 
of these mighty messengers of God has flashed 
from behind the veil, and earth has trembled 
at their mighty power. David sings of the 
angels as those that do excel in strength. 
Remember how the first-born of Egypt was 
smitten in every home, and how the proud 
hosts of Assyria fell dead in the night. Be 
bold, then, if these are thy body-guard. 

And yet the promise has its limits: " in all 

thy ways." The tempter chose this text to 

feather his fiery dart when he assailed the Son 

of God, but he must needs strip it and trim it 

for his purpose. He put the full stop so as to 

shutout all reference to " thy ways." If we 

go out of our way we go alone ; the angels 

leave us then to stumble on as best we can, or 
8 



114 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

it may be they array themselves to hinder us : 
as when Balaam went out of his way and there 
stood against him the angel of the Lord, hav- 
ing his sword drawn in his hand, and so it 
came to pass that Balaam's foot was dashed 
" against a stone." How, then, may we keep 
in our way? When the starting-place is the 
Father's presence, the secret place of the Most 
High ; when we have talked of the way with 
him who ordereth our steps, and come forth 
taught of the Lord ; when our purpose is in 
all things to please and honor him ; when, 
whichever way we go, our hearts are set on 
getting back to him again as the end of our 
way — then we are not likely to go astray. 

" His angels. " Of course it means, first and 
most of all, those ministering spirits who are 
sent forth from the throne of God ; but not 
those only. He gives all things li charge con- 
cerning" his children as his messengers and 
ministers. " He maketh his angels winds, and 
his ministers a flame of fire ;" the stormy blasts 
and fierce flames, the very forces of destruction 
are among his angels. It is the truth in which 
St. Paul perpetually triumphs : " All things 
work together for good to them that love God." 



Communion. 1 1 5 

As we have dwelt upon the wonderful kind- 
ness and tender care that are revealed in this 
psalm, we may well have begun to fear lest 
such love should spoil us. So screened and 
guarded, what opportunity is there for the 
nobleness that is born of endurance ; for the 
courage that comes of peril ; for the hardier 
virtues? Fear not; because our God loveth 
us so well, he loveth us most wisely. Tenderly 
indeed does he care for his children, yet he 
knows how to train them as his heroes and 
kings. Here is the heroism : " Thou shalt 
tread upon the lion and adder: the young 
lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under 
feet." The lion, that is, the monster that 
comes against us in sheer force of strength, 
thou hast in God a power to rend him even as 
did Samson of old. The serpent — the hidden 
peril that lurks and creeps and springs una- 
wares upon its prey ; the subtle sin like that 
before which Samson fell — thou hast in God a 
power to trample this, too, under foot. 
Strength and watchfulness and wisdom are 
ours and ours perfectly, in his presence and 
help. 

It seems strange that he should deliver u 



u6 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

from the snare of the fowler, and yet should 
suffer us to meet the lion and the dragon. 
Herein let us take much comfort. Our God 
knoweth what temptations to deliver us from ; 
and he knoweth what temptations to give us 
the victory over. Think of it, soul, and sing 
of it as one of the things thou hast to be 
thankful for — the snares we never knew of; 
the baffled plans of the tempter; the subtle 
purposes that were defeated ; the fiery darts of 
the wicked one that our watchful Lord turned 
aside while we slept. Of Satan also it is true 
that he proposes and God disposes. And now 
if against us there come any trial, any suffer- 
ing, any sorrow, any threatening evil, in this 
let us find hope and strength : God could have 
delivered us from it ; that he hath not so de- 
livered us is the very pledge and assurance 
that he will make us more than conquerors 
over it. He knows the measure of our foe ; he 
knows the measure of our strength. Fear not. 
Brave men of old believed that the strength 
of the vanquished became the added strength 
of the victor, and thus he went from conquer- 
ing to conquer. It is true to the full of every 
conflict of the soul. By conflicts like these 



Communion. 1 1 7 

our God develops us : teaching us thus of our- 
selves, of our needs and weakness ; teaching us, 
too, of himself, of his watchfulness and might ; 
and thus he fits us for further and loftier service, 
and such conflicts and victories as these are 
the material of which heaven's songs are made. 
The shouts of victory come only of the battle. 
Let this, then, be our watchword — it is a prom- 
ise which we may bear as our shield and buck- 
ler: Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the 
adder. Whatever threatens now — fierce foe, 
or trying circumstance, or subtle temptation — 
fear none of them. Only fear thyself, thy 
weakness, and thy folly; and let that fear 
keep thee near to him who is thy stronghold ; 
there shall no evil befall thee. 

Then come words so wonderful that we 
almost fear to speak of them. Our poor 
thoughts can scarcely reach up to them, and 
still less can our shallow language hold their 
fullness. We want a new power of utterance 
for truths like these. As the telephone anni- 
hilates distance, so do we need a cardiphone, 
an instrument by which heart might speak to 
heart without the chilling diversion of our 
words. It is good to think of the Holy Spirit 



1 1 8 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

as such a power ; revealing the love of God not 
as a thought, a theory, not in word only, but 
as an inwrought possession : " the love of 
God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy 
Ghost given unto us." Let us ask for his 
grace and power as we seek to enter into this 
mystery of love. 

" Because he hath set his love upon me, 
therefore will I deliver him : I will set him on 
high, because he hath known my name.'' 

There is an amazing boldness in these words, 
boldness that could belong only to the man 
who has hidden in the secret place, and who 
has looked forth upon all his goodness. We 
hear the most High God talking over his pur- 
pose concerning his child. We know what it 
is to think over our plans for our children, and 
to see what we can do for them ; but if our 
power were only one with our will, what should 
we do for them then ? Here it is so ; perfect 
love plans, while perfect power waits to carry 
out the purpose. My soul, think how thy God 
longs to have thee utterly and altogether as 
his own, that he may see fulfilled in thee his 
largest desires. 

" I will deliver him." Perfect safety is our 



Communion. 1 19 

first blessing, the blessing of Benjamin — " The 
beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by 
him ; and the Lord Jehovah shall cover him 
all the day long." My soul, lie down in the 
assurance of safety pledged by all these prom- 
ises, for now is it the delight of his love to 
deliver thee. There is none like unto the God 
of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in 
thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. 
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath 
thee are the everlasting arms. Who is like 
unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord ! 

" I will set him on high because he hath 
known my name." How high is that which 
God counts high ? Measure by this the vast- 
ness of his purposes concerning us. That on 
which the heart is set shall be the heart's pos- 
session and resting-place, and God himself 
shall be our glorious satisfaction. 

" He shall call upon me, and I will answer 
him." Love may sleep through the wild 
howling of the winds and roll of thunder, or 
amid the hubbub of the city and its roar of 
traffic. But let the little one wake with but 
the faint beginning of a cry, and the mother's 
love springs up with eagerness. And, quick 



1 20 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

to answer as to hear — " He shall call upon 
me, and I will answer him." 

" I will be with him in trouble." What 
springs of precious consolation lie in these 
words ! That saying is true : " Trouble 
never comes single ; " every trouble brings 
God with it — as of old time, when men 
believed that where the poison grew there 
grew its antidote beside it, ever ready with 
its healing. " I will be with him." Our gra- 
cious God comes ever with his own consola- 
tion. He himself is our Comforter. 

When we can go on our ways he gives his 
angels charge concerning us — just as the 
mother bids the nursemaid take care of the 
little one ; to keep it out of winds, and find 
the sunny path, and to avoid the perils of the 
crowded streets. But to-night the cheek is 
flushed, the head droops, the eyes are heavy, 
the hot breaths come and go quickly ; and 
now the little one can find no rest but in the 
mother's arms, and the only soothing is in the 
sound of her voice and the touch of her gentle 
hand. " I will be with the little one to- 
night," says the mother. Even so tender and 
pitiful is our God. "I will be with him in 



Communion. 121 

trouble." The angels may protect and minis- 
ter in a thousand gracious ways, but trouble 
makes us so sacred that God himself comes 
then to soothe and cheer us. 

" I will deliver him, and honor him. ,, Think 
again, what is that which God counts honor? 
Think how God looks down on our courtly 
shows and pageants — so short-lived; with 
burdened hearts beneath the splendid robes, 
and a thousand common wants ; seeing the 
sorrow and the strife that lie behind it all ; 
the dust and darkness on to which it all is 
passing. What, then, is the honor that God 
gives ? How lofty, how real, how abiding ! 
Be ambitious, soul, and carry thyself as one 
for whom such great things are in store. 

" With long life will I satisfy him." Satisfy. 
That is God's own word, that none else can 
use rightly. The life that satisfies must have 
depth, and height, and breadth ; and now to 
these God promises this also — length of days. 
u I will show him my salvation " — be showing 
him my salvation. The idea seems to be of 
that which God shall be opening up to us 
through the ages, for ever and for ever unfold- 
ing it. Think of Moses climbing the mount, 



122 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

while at every point some new beauty of the 
goodly Canaan opens before him— the plains 
dotted with the flocks that lie down in green 
pastures, the hill-sides terraced with the vine- 
yards, the valleys covered with the golden 
corn, the homesteads screened by leafy shelter 
from the noontide heat. And as Moses looks 
forth upon the vast expanse we can think 
how all his heart yearned for another land of 
promise, a place of rest and peace. There 
fell upon him tenderly the voice that bade 
him " Come up higher." And he passed up 
to the mount of the Lord, to look forth upon 
the fuller beauty and the richer blessedness 
of the heavenly Canaan, and to find it all his 
own. So let us think of heights for us, too, 
leading on to further heights — possessions 
which by our very use and enjoyment of 
them develop new faculties and other powers ; 
and by and by for the new fitness there waits 
a new possession, up to which our God leads 
us. " My child," he saith, "all this is thine." 
And so again the new inheritance ; and yet 
again the new development, the further 
growth, the unfolding of fresh capacities, 
until again, far on in the ages, it is spoken : 



Communion. 123 

" Come up higher ; this is thine. M Then, 
wondering at such unwearied love, we ask 
amazed : " Gracious Father, will thy love 
never be satisfied ? " And the answer comes : 
" Never, my child, never. My love to thee is 
infinite." 



124 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MY LORD AND MY GOD. 
ST. JOHN XX, 28. 

He has not entered into the mystery of 
the blessed life who has not learned to say this 
with all the strength of mind and heart. " My 
Lord and my God." We must know Christ 
the Lord as our own, our very own, taking 
him all to ourselves. My Lord, in perfect fit- 
ness and correspondence to my nature and my 
wants. My Lord, in the constancy of .his 
presence with me, and in the completeness of 
his help. My Lord, in the fullness of his 
claim upon my love and faith and service. 
My Lord, in my appropriating him, having 
and holding him as wholly mine. Let us 
muse upon this until the fire kindle — how the 
gracious Lord comes to each of us in the 
distinctness of our character and in the sep- 
arateness of our circumstances, and teaches us 
each to say, " My Lord and my God." 



My Lord and my God. 125 

What have we until we have learned to say 
this? 

Think of Thomas the disciple, the apostle — 
Saint Thomas, if you will ; yet, so long as he 
stopped short of this, his high position and 
privilege availed him nothing. We envy him 
his knowledge of the Lord ; the look, the 
tones, the manner, the words, the doings, all 
were vivid in his mind. Yet all these memories 
only confused and bewildered him as he looked 
back upon them. He knew all about Jesus, but 
that knowledge left him lonely and despair- 
ing. He moved as in a dream ; with all things 
wrapped in mist. His soul put forth trem- 
bling buds of hope, and then an icy fear swept 
over him and all was dead again. Alas, poor 
Thomas ! A little to be blamed perhaps, yet 
wholly to be pitied. Ah, are there not to-day 
hosts of men and women like him ? Men and 
women to whom Christ is only a Christ that 
was ; they treasure his story, but they never 
know his presence. He is a memory ; a text for 
endless sermons; a name on which to rest our 
creeds and theories. And such a knowledge 
leaves them as it left Thomas : in loneliness, 
in fear, haunted ever with doubt and failure. 



1 26 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

But think of Thomas after this experience. 
He has put forth the finger and touched the 
wound-print. He has thrust his hand into 
that sacred side. Then all the heart leaped up 
and cried, " My Lord and my God ! " Joyful 
assurance like a tide swept and surged about 
his soul, filling every crevice and cranny with 
triumph. Every perception, every faculty of 
the mind was filled and satisfied by that vision 
of the Lord. " My Lord." Not dead; him- 
self; and now so much more than he was be- 
fore ! He has overcome death. He has proved 
himself triumphant over chief priests and 
Roman soldiers. He has conquered the pow- 
ers of darkness ; and now his great love, 
stronger than death and mightier than the 
grave, brings him back into the midst of his 
mourning disciples. " My Lord." What can- 
not he do ! Now every hope lives again. Now 
is every dream and desire of the soul made pos- 
sible. All within him was filled and thrilled 
and fired by the possession of such a Saviour. 
And all that this precious Lord is the disciple 
holds as his own ; my Lord and jny God. 

Now that is where the Lord seeks to bring 
each one of us — right up to the point of this 



My Lord and my God. 127 

glad possession. Until we get there our relig- 
ion cannot but be a sickly, sunless thing — little 
more than a fear and a failure. But think of 
the wealth of blessedness that is ours when 
the heart can say, " My Lord and my God." 
Not a dead Christ, not a memory, not afar off, 
but the Saviour mine ; more close and intimate 
and constant than any other can be. My 
Lord, revealing himself to me as I need to 
know him. My Lord, gathering to himself by 
the constraint of his love all my love as his 
own ; teaching me to find the brightness of 
his presence in all the common things of life ; 
teaching me to bring all these common things 
into his service. My Lord, by such amazing 
proofs and pledges of love. My Lord, that I 
may find a heaven of rest in his care, a heaven of 
activity in his service, a heaven of joy in his pres- 
ence. That is what the Lord would be to us. 

Now the Lord brings us to say this. 

Nothing would have been easier than for 
Christ to have attested himself to be the Lord 
and the God. How splendid a triumph might 
he have achieved over death and hell, in sight 
of the assembled thousands there, on Calvary! 
Even while yet he hung upon the cross, think 



128 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, 

how that very cross might have become his 
throne of dazzling splendor, arched by troops 
of angels, and up from the depths came death, 
discrowned and scepterless, while there, before 
the hosts of the people, hushed and terrified, 
he might have stood " clothed with white 
raiment and girt with a golden girdle ; his face 
like the sun in its strength, his eyes a flame of 
fire," while with a great voice as of a trumpet 
he proclaims himself, " I am he that liveth 
and was dead, and, behold, I am alive for 
evermore ; and have the keys of hell and of 
death. " Then Thomas could not have doubt- 
ed ; then Mary could not have wept. Why 
not thus? Because that majesty and splendor 
would never have won the glad utterance, 
" My Lord and my God." That awful glory 
would have thrust itself in between the Lord 
and the disciple; it would have silenced and 
rebuked the tender familiarity that took 
him for its own. " I fell at his feet as dead," 
writes St. John, when thus he saw the Lord. 
No ; all that would have confirmed their faith 
in him as the Lord and the God, but that 
never could have led to this exultant posses- 
sion. He must come to each, separately and 



My Lord and my God. 1 29 

apart, for that. He must reveal himself as a 
living presence, winning his way perhaps dif- 
ferently to each heart. He must come in the 
still hour and stand knocking and entreating, 
" Open unto me, and I will come in and sup 
with thee." In such direct personal com- 
munion, in such sweet and sacred fellowship, 
in such contact and familiarity with him, in 
such giving himself to us as our own — thus 
and thus only do we learn to say, u My Lord 
and my God." 

In Christ there is the perfected humanity 
which makes him one with every man. 

Think how we differ among ourselves. 
Think of differences of race, of nations; think 
of social differences ; think of the infinite va- 
riety there is in character. Difference in 
stature is a measure of inches, but who can 
measure the difference in souls? Here are 
possibilities of such heights and depths of 
endurance, of devotion, of love, of hatred, of 
cruelty ; the soul can soar beyond the loftiest 
mountain peak and sit in heavenly places 
with Christ Jesus, or here and now it may sink 
away down into such depths that no nether- 
most hell is deeper or darker or hides more 
9 



130 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

dreadful secrets than the soul may do. How 
are we shut away from each other ! how few 
we ever know, and how few know us ! Now 
and then we foreigners and strangers meet 
with some one who speaks our mother-tongue. 
We understand them at once, instinctively, 
and they understand us. Then there is fellow- 
ship. Fellow — it implies fitness ; co-respond- 
ence — it answers to us ; and some inner door 
of the heart is opened. But in Jesus Christ 
is the completed human nature that is broken 
up and divided among, us. He is the blessed 
Fellow-man who fits us every one. He under- 
stands us perfectly and answers to us. He 
comes J:o each of us as none other can ever 
come, saying : " I am thy Friend, thy Brother. 
I understand thee, and can come and be at 
home with thee in the innermost chamber of 
thine heart." Here nationality is lost — there 
is neither Jew nor Greek. Here social distinc- 
tions cease to divide — there is neither bond nor 
free. Here external conditions vanish — there is 
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision. Here 
natural divisions no longer separate — there is 
neither male nor female. Look at Christ in con- 
tact with individual cases. Take, for instance, 



My Lord and my God. 1 3 1 

the case of the disciples, and see how he led 
them one by one to himself. They were very 
unlike each other. Thomas and Peter were as 
wide asunder as the poles: Peter, swift, impul- 
sive, rash ; Thomas, slow, hesitating, and doubt- 
ful, they saw things very differently. In those 
disputes which arose between them sometimes, 
it is easy to see that each of these would say 
of the other, " I cannot understand him." 
Thomas must have often wished that Peter 
would not talk so much. And Peter must 
have often thought Thomas dreadfully re- 
served. Yet each could come to say perfectly, 
" My Lord and my God." Then there was John, 
looking into the heart of things and seeing 
them at a glance. How different from Philip, 
who needed to have things made very plain 
before he could see them at all ! Now look 
at the all-wise Master dealing with these, 
bringing them each one to himself just accord- 
ing to their separate characters. John was 
ever the see-er. His emblem was of old the 
eagle, soaring upward, gazing on the sun. His 
testimony is always of that which he has seen. 
"I John saw " is the phrase which is ever on 
his lips. How does the Lord Jesus meet this 



132 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

see-er? One day about ten o'clock — for John 
sees the time as he sees all else — Jesus is walk- 
ing in the distance. The Baptist points this 
disciple of his to the Saviour, and says, " See 
the Lamb of God." Then John followed 
Jesus. Presently those eyes met ; the blessed 
Master turning and looking down into the 
depths of the soul. " Whom seekest thou ? " 
asked Jesus. " Master, where dwellest thou ? " 
cries the eager disciple. " Come and see," said 
Jesus. And he abode with him that day. 
Now Andrew has gone in search of Simon, 
and tells him, " We have found the Christ." 
And as Simon comes with parted lips, swift to 
speak, Jesus does not ask him a question. He 
knows Peter's hasty speech. Jesus greets him 
with words that bewilder him into silence — 
words which perhaps came back long after- 
ward, when hope had nearly gone out, and 
helped to kindle it afresh, " Thou art Simon 
the son of Jona : thou shalt be called Cephas, 
A stone." And remembering those eyes 
which searched him then, it may well have 
been that long afterward — as he turned to meet 
that same gaze, greeted by that same name, 
Simon, son of Jonas — the memory of these 



My Lord and my God. 133 

words came back to prompt the reply, "Lord, 
thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I 
love thee." 

Then comes Philip. He was a man diffident ; 
never the man to lead ; needing a show of 
authority — a man who would falter over an 
invitation, while he would promptly obey a 
command. As Jesus comes with John and 
Andrew and Simon he feels there is proof 
enough to satisfy him, and to him is spoken 
the word exactly adapted to his character. 
Brief, tender, authoritative, the command is 
given, " Follow me." 

Then there is Nathanael — thoughtful, spir- 
itual, meditative. He lightly passes by the 
word of Philip : " Nazareth ! nay, no good 
thing ever came out of Nazareth. " No curi- 
osity prompts him to go forth and see. He 
must have more than a command. Christ 
meets him at once, right away, in the depths 
of his spirit : " Before that Philip called thee, 
when thou wert under the fig tree, I saw thee " 
— when thou wert reading the Scriptures and 
seeking guidance concerning these things, 
my Spirit met thine. Then all Nathanael's 
soul went out to Christ in adoring confidence: 



134 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

" Thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King 
of Israel ! " 

lake another illustration of this truth : that 
wherever Christ went he made every sufferer 
feel that he could do exactly what each needed. 
At once, instinctively, every needy one felt, 
" He can help me ;" and each came to know 
him as my Lord, my Friend, my Healer. 

Here is the leper ; a hopeless case if ever 
there was one. Incurable, and much more than 
that ; making the sufferer to be abhorred and 
dreaded. But a passing glimpse of that face, 
the sound of that voice borne on the breeze, 
was enough. All within him felt that here 
was the very help he wanted. Watching his 
opportunity, he springs from his hiding-place 
and falls at the Master's feet. " If thou wilt, 
thou canst make me clean/' Here is Jairus, 
the ruler of the synagogue. All hope of the 
little maiden's life has ebbed away; death 
steals over the threshold, and who can stay 
him? Yet even in so desperate case Jarius 
cannot doubt. " Come and lay thine hand 
upon her, and she shall live." There is the 
poor woman whose twelve years of suffering 
might well have crushed all hope. But as she 



My Lord and my God. T 35 

thinks of him, hope at once springs up again. 
« If I can but touch the hem of his garment, 
I shall be made whole." Here are the disci- 
ples tossed upon the sea amid blustering winds 
and threatening waves, and the storm growing 
more furious. Why wake Jesus? Sailors 
have little faith in the skill of landsmen ; they 
can handle an oar, and manage the helm, and 
take in a reef. They felt instinctively, irresist- 
ibly that he could help them. And up he 
rose against that stormy sky and amid those 
tumbling seas, << Peace, be still." And in- 
stantly the winds and waves sank down, 
abashed that they should have dealt so roughly 

with the Lord. 

Once, and only once, there came one with 
some doubt ; with a word of hesitancy, as if 
not quite sure that Jesus could help him. It 
was the case of the man who went to the 
disciples before he found Jesus, and who 
got his heart chilled and his faith dimmed by 
their failure. He spoke with a faltering, " If 
Thou canst do any thing." At once Jesus 
took his " if" and put it where only it ever 
can be-in us, not in him ; " If thou canst be- 
lieve." 



136 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Again, see how the Lord deals with the 
two who come before us in this chapter- 
Mary Magdalene and Thomas. In the one 
case that is expressly bidden which in the 
other case is expressly forbidden. She who 
would touch, must not. He who would not, 
may. Look at the two cases. Mary Magda- 
lene lingers in the garden blinded by her 
grief. There before her stands the risen Lord, 
but she thinks it is the gardener. If the 
Saviour cannot reach her heart in one way, 
he will seek another; and if the eye know 
him not, he will appeal to the ear. He speaks 
to her with the old familiar tone of love. 
" Mary ! " At once she is at his feet with joy- 
ful adoration. " My Master ! " " Touch me 
not," said Jesus. " I am not yet ascended to 
my Father." It meant the tenderest care 
for her— as if he said : " Already at my 
going thine heart has been broken ; and now 
to know me again in any bodily presence will 
be only to renew thy grief. Wait until I 
ascend to my Father; and then, when the 
Holy Ghost is given, thou shalt know me 
in a deep, abiding, spiritual union that shall 
never be broken." But to Thomas the word is, 



My Lord and my God, 137 

" Reach hither thy finger ; stretch forth 
thine hand." He is of another material ; 
that bodily contact shall help the spiritual 
union. Then as the finger rested on that 
wound-print, and as the hand was laid against 
that sacred side, all his soul exulted in con- 
scious possession of the risen Saviour — " My 
Lord and my God ! " 

Do not think that all this was possible for 
those early disciples, and for those sufferers of 
old, in some easier way than it is for us to-day. 
Do not think for a moment that this conscious 
personal possession was made easier by his 
bodily presence. Far otherwise. Then Christ 
stood in a crowd observed by many eyes ; 
shut off by some distance from even those 
nearest to him ; passing occasionally out of 
the midst of those who were most intimate 
with him. Rut the work of the Holy Spirit is 
much more directly a separate and personal 
work. Now no longer in the crowd, now no 
more as one of many, is Christ made known 
to us. He comes to us away, alone, and by 
ourselves : " If a man love me, he will keep 
my words : and my Father will love him, and 
we will come unto him, and make our abode 



1 38 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

with him." A presence possessed by us as my 
Lord is now the very promise that he waits to 
fulfill. It is this direct personal and individual 
dealing that distinguishes the work of the 
Holy Ghost. A distinct and separate act of 
conviction is wrought in every case of peni- 
tence, and often wrought in very differ- 
ent ways. A distinct manifestation of God's 
love to us in Christ Jesus is given to each for- 
given one. In each believer there is wrought 
a distinct and personal confidence — that the 
Son of God loved me and gave himself for 
me. To each child of God is given the bold- 
ness that claims God in the tenderest relation- 
ship, and with the fullest right to all that he is 
and has. Because we are sons God hath 
sent forth the Spirit of his Son, crying, Abba, 
Father. 

Be bold, then, to think of the Lord as " My 
Lord and my God." Beware of reading or 
thinking about the blessed life as if it could 
be yours by agreeing with certain human 
theories and opinions about it. It is only in 
a personal possession of Christ the Lord. It 
is what he seeks to give us, and what he will 
give to each one of us if we do but fully 



My Lord and my God. 139 

receive him. Take him and trust him as 
your own ; wholly and perfectly your own — 
understanding you apart from all others, 
knowing exactly how to teach you and to help 
you. Now let your heart take up the glo- 
rious possession. He has given himself for 
us, that he may give himself to us. And now 
he waits for you to accept him as your own — 
all yours, and always, altogether yours — yours 
to do for you exceeding abundantly above all 
that you ask or think. 



140 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONSECRATED AND TRANSFORMED. 

" I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accepta- 
ble unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not 
conformed to this world : but be ye transformed by the 
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, 
and acceptable, and perfect will of God." — Rom. xii, r, 2. 

The key of this chapter does not hang in 
the door. It is found in the last verse of the 
previous chapter: " Of him, and through him, 
and to him, are all things : to whom be glory 
for ever. Amen." Every thing comes from 
God ; every thing fills its intended purpose by 
the wisdom and energy of God ; every thing 
comes back again to find its end, as its begin- 
ning, in God. This is the law of the universe, 
the great march of all things : from God, 
through God, to God. 

But of all things about us this is a neces- 
sity. They cannot fly from their appointed 
ends. Ever wrought upon by a great compul- 



Consecrated and Transformed. 141 

sion, they must ; while we are marked off by 
this dignity and greatness : that to us this 
service is of choice, of will. We are sons, not 
servants. We choose where they must. To 
us it is an intelligent surrender, a " reasonable 
service." We are besought where all else are 
compelled. From reason, not from blind 
necessity, we present ourselves to the sweep 
and action of this great law. 

And yet, though it is a reasonable service, 
it is a subject of entreaty : " I beseech you." 
We naturally object to be besought to do a 
reasonable thing. Show us that a thing is 
reasonable, and at once and of course we do 
it. That is " only reasonable," we say of a 
proposal ; and, without more ado, the matter 
is settled, of course and beyond appeal. 
Think, then, that for our highest good and 
loftiest life we have to be besought ! Should 
it not shame us, and humble and hurt us, that 
for God alone we play not the part of reason- 
able men ? Here only are we blind and fools. 
It is amazing that the possibility of such 
blessedness as this does not draw us eagerly 
to its possession ; that we should have to be 
urged, entreated, driven, when God invites us 



142 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

to give ourselves wholly to him that he may 
give himself wholly to us ! Listen to the 
music of the w r ords : " that ye may prove 
what is that good, and acceptable, and per- 
fect will of God." Alas! the words reach us, 
and the soul finds in them no dawn of 
heaven's own splendor. The ear does not 
hear in them the very voice of God, calling us 
into paradise again. We stand blinded, and 
see not how there is held out to us here the 
golden key of heaven itself! Here is reason 
not only not a guide ; it ceases even to prompt 
us. Alas, that it should be so ! As if the 
humanity which God fashioned for commun- 
ion with himself should be paralyzed, uncon- 
scious, dead only when he appeals to us. 
Ambitious enough for the paltry distinctions 
of the earth, but for these high honors need- 
ing to be entreated, and urged; greedy after 
earthly good, here, only, needing to be 
besought and driven. O that we could feel 
the plaintive grief, the shameful upbraiding, 
that lie in this call, " I beseech you ! " 

This is the entreaty of a man who was liv- 
ing this life of blessedness. He had given 
himself right up altogether to God ; body, 



Consecrated and Transformed. 143 

soul, and spirit. And now he was filled with 
the conscious strength and triumph of this 
sublime unity. His life was full-orbed and 
rounded perfectly. Every thought, every 
aim, every desire had in it the might of God ; 
of God, and through God, and to God, was 
the beat of every pulse, and the throb of every 
thought, and the life of every desire, and the 
strength of every work. This was the rhyth- 
mic flow of his whole being. There was of 
necessity in this man a constant sense of 
triumph. He walked the earth with such a 
firm step, knowing whose world it is and that 
it is well put together, as if under his feet 
were the granite of eternal truth or the pure 
gold of God's eternal love. He moved about 
with a calm untroubled confidence, quite sure 
that all things were working together for the 
glory of the Lord, and for his good. There 
sang ever in his soul the music of those who 
serve God day and night in his holy temple. 
And then, in all the consciousness of this 
blessed life, he thinks of the half-hearted, of 
those who come far enough out of the far 
country to lose the husks of the swine, but not 
far enough to get the bread of the father's 



144 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

house. If pity is anywhere, keep it for these ; 
none need it more. These are the miserable 
people of the world, who admit the claims of 
God, and yet do not give themselves up to 
them ; who pull for heaven, and yet do not 
cast off the rope that holds them to the shore. 
Like the fabled coffin of Mohammed, these 
people are neither in earth nor heaven, but lie 
suspended between the two, unclaimed by 
either, and yet fretting for each. The apos- 
tle's soul is stirred within him, and at once 
with a demand and an entreaty he cries : " I 
beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye 
give yourselves right up and wholly to God ! " 
If this religion is worth any thing it is worth 
all the mind and heart and strength that we 
can put into it. 

Again, it is the entreaty of a man who had 
lingered at the cross until its great love pos- 
sessed him. He had seen into the bittef sor- 
row of the Son of God ; his dreadful shame and 
agony. He had seen something of the vast- 
ness and glorious purpose of God's unspeak- 
able gift. He had looked out toward the 
boundless possibilities that are opened to us 
all in him. With that mercy filling every 



Consecrated and Transformed. 145 

thought and kindling his soul he turns to him- 
self and to us : What return, what acknowl- 
edgement, can any of us make ? There can be 
but one answer : Ourselves ; all that we have 
and are and can be, presented a living sacrifice 
unto our God. We are besought, we are 
bound by that infinite love. There is a com- 
pulsion mightier in its force than that which 
controls all things, infinitely loftier in its 
origin, infinitely nobler in its purpose : the 
compulsion of love. The power that prompts 
this consecration, and the power that sustains 
it, is here and only here : the love of God to 
us in Christ Jesus the Lord. There let us 
seek it. Our resolutions are choked by the 
rank undergrowth of weeds ; our purposes 
wither when the sun is up. By that love, by 
that grief, by that agony, by that dreadful 
death, this entreaty comes to us. The cross is 
the eternal beseeching of God. And only by 
that love, that deliverance, by the power and 
hope which the cross brings to us, are we made 
strong and steadfast for this consecration. 

Look at the consecration to which we are 
urged : " That ye present your bodies a liv- 
ing sacrifice . . . unto God." 
10 



146 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

We will turn again to the great law of all 
things and trace its application. There are 
two parts of it which illustrate the two lead- 
ing thoughts of this passage — sacrifice and 
transformation. We will take these two 
separately. 

The first part is this — that nothing in God's 
world is any good until it is given up to that 
which is above it. 

What is the worth of the land, however 
fruitful, and whatever title we may have to it, 
unless we can do something with it ? " Of 
course/' you say. But why of course? Un- 
derneath that " of course " lies the law of 
which we speak. The soil must minister to us 
or it is no good — merely waste land. It must 
grow its grass or flowers or trees, it must 
yield us foundation for our buildings, or min- 
erals and metals for our use, or it is of no 
service, and so no good. The seed again, and 
all its products — corn, and grass, and fruit, 
and tree — what should we give for them if we 
could do nothing with them? They must 
yield themselves in turn to the animal life, or 
else more directly minister to our wants. In 
this lies their worth, their good. And the 



Consecrated and Transformed. 147 

cattle and sheep, what are all the flocks and all 
the herds, except as they clothe us, and feed 
us, and minister to us? And we, what are we 
for? Here lies our worth and our good: in 
giving ourselves a living sacrifice to God. 
This is our service. Waste and worthless are 
we except as we give ourselves up to him who 
is above us ; discerning and fulfilling his will 
concerning us, of whom, and through whom, 
and to whom are all things. 

Then comes the second part of this law, 
completing it ; every thing by sacrifice not lost, 
but turned into higher life. Very beautiful is 
this law of transformation. 

Listen to the parable of the earth, as it lies 
far down beneath the blue heaven, or as in the 
cold night it looks up at the silver stars. 
"Here am I," it mutters, "so far away from 
him who made me. The grass blades and the 
flowers lift up their heads and whisper to the 
breeze, the trees go far up into the golden 
sunshine, the birds fly up against the very 
heaven, the clouds are touched sometimes 
with glory as if they caught the splendor of 
the King, the stars are bright as if they shone 
with the light of his presence. And I am 



148 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

down here ! How can I ever climb up to him 
who made me?" And then the poor earth 
sighs again : " And that is not all — not even the 
worst of it> I am only dull soil, without any 
beauty of form, or richness of color, or sweet- 
ness of smell ! All things seem full of loveli- 
ness but me. How can I ever be turned into 
worth and blessedness ? " 

And now there comes the seed, and it is 
hidden in the earth. " Earth, " whispers the 
seed, " wilt thou give me thy strength?" 

" No, indeed," replies the earth ; " why 
should I give thee my strength? It is all I 
have got, and I will keep it for myself." 

" Then," saith the seed, " thou shalt be 
earth, and only earth, for ever and ever. But 
if thou wilt give me thy strength thou shalt 
be lifted up into another life." 

So the earth yields, and gives up its strength 
to the seed. And the seed takes hold of it 
and lifts it up and begins to turn it into a 
hundred forms of beauty ; it rises with won- 
drous stem ; it drinks in sunshine and rain and 
air, mingling them with the earth's strength 
and changing all to toughened branch or 
dainty leaf, to rich flower or ripened fruit. 






Consecrated and Transformed. 149 

Then its work is done as it ends in the seed. 
And it cries to the earth : " Spake I not truly ? 
Thou art not lost, but by sacrifice transformed 
to higher life, to worth and beauty/* 

The parable repeats itself in the case of the 
seed. Take up a handful of the corn. " Is it 
alive ? " you ask. Yes, with a kind of life, 
but all unconscious. It cannot see or hear or 
move. But it yields itself to the animal, and 
then its strength is turned into part of the 
seeing eye, the hearing ear, the subtle nerve, 
the beating heart. And the animal gives itself 
in turn to serve man, and is exalted to a thou- 
sand higher purposes. It yields its strength 
to him, and it ministers to the thinking brain, 
the skillful hand, the strength that sways, that 
serves, and blesses. 

And man gives himself up to God, to love 
him, to learn his will and do it, and is trans- 
formed — into what? Ah! who can tell of 
that wondrous transformation when it is com- 
pleted ? We think of the redeemed and glori- 
fied, white-robed and pure, untouched by sor- 
row, unstained by sin, into whose minds there 
entereth nothing that defileth, in whose heart 
no unlovely thing can find a lodging-place, 



1 50 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

who day and night are there before the throne, 
standing in the very light of God's own glori- 
ous presence, and serving him with a perfect 
service, unwearied, unbroken, amid the angels 
that do excel in strength ! Do you ask who 
are these, and whence came they ? These but 
yesterday were here as we are, earth-stained, 
commonplace, burdened men and women, 
tempted and afraid, selfish, sinful ; without 
beauty or worth were they too. But they 
gave themselves up to God, and now are 
they like him, for they see him as he is. By 
sacrifice not lost, but -transformed to higher 
life. 

Once, when I was a school-boy going home 
for the holidays, I had a long way to go to 
reach the far-away little town in which I dwelt. 
I arrived at Bristol, and got on board the 
steamer with just money enough for my fare, 
and that being settled I thought, in my inno- 
cence, I had paid for every thing I needed in the 
way of meals. I had what I wanted so long 
as we were in smooth water ; then came the 
rough Atlantic, and the need of nothing more. 
I had been lying in my berth for hours, 
wretchedly ill, and past caring for any thing, 



Consecrated and Transformed. 1 5 1 

when there came the steward and stood 
beside me. 

" Your bill, sir/' said he, holding out the 
piece of paper. 

4< IVe got no money," said I in my wretch- 
edness. 

" Then I shall keep your luggage. What is 
your name and address ? " 

I told him. Instantly he took off the cap 
he wore, with the gilt band about it, and held 
out his hand : " I should like to shake hands 
with you," he said with a smile. 

I gave him my hand, and shook his as well 
as I could. Then came the explanation : how 
that, some years before, some little kindness 
had been shown his mother by my father in the 
sorrow of her widowhood. " I never thought 
the chance would come for me to repay it," 
said he pleasantly ; " but I am glad it has." 

" So am I," said I. 

As soon as I got ashore I told my father 
what had happened. " Ah," said he, " see 
how a bit of kindness lives ! Now he has 
passed it on to you. Remember, if ever you 
meet any body that needs a friendly hand, you 
must pass it on to them." 



152 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Years had gone by. I had grown up and 
quite forgotten it all, until one day I had 
gone to the station of one of our main lines. 
I was just going to take my ticket when I saw 
a little lad crying — a thorough man, he was, 
trying bravely to keep back the troublesome 
tears, as he pleaded with the booking-clerk. 

" What is the matter, my lad? " I asked. 

" If you please, sir, I haven't money enough 
to pay my fare. I have all I want but a few 
pence, and I tell the clerk if he will trust me 
I will be sure to pay him again." 

Instantly back upon, me flashed the forgot- 
ten story of long ago. Here, then, was my 
chance of passing it on. I gave him the sum 
he needed, and got into the carriage with him. 
Then I told the little fellow the story of long 
ago, and of the steward's kindness to me. 
" Now, to-day," I said, " I pass it on to you ; 
and remember, if you meet with any one that 
needs a kindly hand, you must pass it on to 
them." 

" I will, sir," cried the lad, as he took my 
hand, and his eyes flashed with earnestness. 

" I am sure you will," I answered. 

I reached my destination, and left my little 



Consecrated and Transformed. 153 

friend. The last sign I had of him was as the 
handkerchief fluttered from the window of the 
carriage, as if to say : " It is all right, sir ; I 
will pass it on/' 

My simple story is the poor and broken 
illustration of the law of God's great kind- 
ness that runs through all things. Here lies 
the earth, and it says : " I have got in me 
some strength. It belongs to God. It came 
down from him to me by a host of gracious 
messengers — the seasons, and the sunshine, 
and the rain." Then it whispers to the seed : 
" I will pass it on to you, and if you can pass 
it on further you will ; wont you ? " Then 
the seed takes it up, and carries it higher, and 
it says : " I have some strength in me. It 
belongs to God. It came down from him to the 
earth, and the earth has passed it on to me." 
And the seed whispers to the animal : " I will 
pass it on to you, and if you get a chance of 
passing it on you will; wont you?" And in 
turn the animal ministers to man, and it says : 
" I have some strength in me. It came down 
from God, and it belongs to him. The earth 
has passed it on to the seed, and the seed has 
passed it on to me, and now I pass it on to 



154 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

you. If you can pass it on further you will ; 
wont you ? " And as the man comes in, and 
with a conscious and reasonable service yields 
himself to God, then do all things flow back 
again to their Creator. 

So man completes the circle. He is the 
last link in it all. Think how all things minis- 
ter to him — the light, the air, the earth ; the 
growth of tree, and fruit, and flower; the 
strength and life of things about him. Think 
how the ages wait upon him. How the slow 
action of centuries has ground the rock to 
soil, and how the soil has been wrought upon 
by wind, and rain, and changes of the seasons, 
till it is fit for the seed. And how the seed 
gathers up this vast preparation, and passes it 
on to man. All things reach up to him ; all 
things wait upon him : u Thou hast put all 
things under his feet." If he serves not God, 
he hinders all things, and diverts them. If 
he yields himself to God, then does he stand 
as the high-priest of nature, arrayed in the 
garments of praise, and consecrates all things 
to the Creator. It is a cry taken up and 
urged by the voice of all things — the sun in 
the heavens, the air we breathe, the food we 



Consecrated and Transformed. 155 

eat, the earth we tread upon, the things we 
handle, all that eye can rest upon, and that 
ear can listen to, repeat this word, each adding 
to its reasonableness, each demanding it as a 
right : " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by 
the mercies of God, that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice . . . unto God." 
Then, and then only, do all things find their 
purpose and their glorious end. " Of him, 
and through him, and to him, are all things : 
to whom be glory for ever. Amen." 

Next, the result of this consecration — " Be 
not conformed to this world." How great a 
drop is this ! We were dreaming of heaven ; 
our thoughts were all taken up with the sub- 
lime hope of being made like unto the Son of 
God. Then comes this sudden fall to a com- 
monplace of morality — a mere copy-slip head- 
ing ! And it is the first of a series of such 
little moralities: Be not wise in your own 
conceits. Be given to hospitality. Be not 
slothful in business. Live peaceably with all 
men. But that this should seem a coming 
down makes the lesson all the more needful. 
All this is full of weighty meaning. Do we 
not too often think that our way upward is, 



156 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

first to be right with ourselves ; and then to 
be right with the world ; and then somewhere 
far off we may some day come to be right 
with God? No ; the order is reversed. This 
is the only way upward : first right with God ; 
then, and then only, right with all things. 
First " present your bodies a living sacrifice " 
unto God ; then the world and all belonging 
to it is put in its right place. Sin created 
nothing new, and it took away nothing of 
what God had created. But it put man out 
of harmony with God. Then at once man 
was out of harmony with himself, and with 
every thing about him. All things are 
adjusted to God's will. This is the end as it is 
the source of all things. Man only has 
broken loose from his place ; and as soon as 
ever he is where he should be, he fits in with 
all things, and all things fit in with him. 
When he loves God, there is a perfect har- 
mony — " all things work together for good/' 
This, then, is the first great step, and not the 
last ; the very beginning of the life of God 
lies here, and all else shall follow of necessity : 
" Present your bodies a living sacrifice . . . 
unto God." 



Consecrated and Transformed. 157 

How vain are all other attempts at curing 
conformity to the world ! Perhaps there 
never was a time when there were so many 
Christians as there are to-day. Certainly 
there never was a time when there were so 
many home-made Christians as there are to- 
day ; man-made, church-made Christians. 
Who does not know the receipt ? Tie up the 
hands and say: " Sir, you must not do that." 
Tie up his feet and say: " You mustn't go to 
such and such places — at least, when you are 
at home/' Gag his mouth ; blind his eyes ; 
stop his ears ; cut him off from certain things 
at which society is shocked, and there is your 
Christian : a creature with his heart hungering 
for the world as fiercely as ever, and whose 
only evidence of any earnestness is in a 
constant discussion as to whether there is any 
harm in a score of questionable or unques- 
tionable things that he desires, and in the sin- 
cerity of his complaint that they are forbid- 
den. Can we wonder at the general notion 
that religion is a thing of hardships and re- 
straints? To present our bodies a living sac- 
rifice to the opinions of religious society is no 
cure for conformity to the world. This is the 



158 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

only way — a glad, complete, whole-hearted 
giving up of ourselves to God. Then comes 
the being " transformed by the renewing of 
the mind"." Transformed, not from without 
but from within ; exactly as the earth is trans- 
formed when it gives itself up to the seed. 
The contrast between the two words " con- 
formed " and " transformed " is very much 
stronger and more definite as St. Paul stated 
it. But the word "transformed" is, literally, 
metamorphosed. It implies an organic result. 
This is the very idea and heart of Christian- 
ity. It is not only an example of true life. 
It is not only a revelation of new purposes 
and motives. It is a power to which we can 
surrender ourselves, which can take us up and 
transform us into a newer and higher life — 
even the life of God. 

" That ye may prove what is that good and 
acceptable and perfect will of God." The 
renewed mind has new faculties of discern- 
ment. There is a clear perception and appre- 
ciation of the will of God ; new eyes to see it, 
and a new heart to do it and to be it. We 
cannot know God's will until we are given up 
to it. Once as I meditated on these words I 



Consecrated and Transformed, 159 

heard the children pass my study door, and 
among them was a little maiden of three or 
four, who was speaking angrily. "I sha'n't,'' 
rang out the little voice. I opened the door 
and called her in. " This wont do," said I, 
gravely ; " you must stand in the corner until 
you come to a better mind." And with a 
saddened face the little offender crept to the 
corner and set herself in the angle of the wall, 
and put the tiny hands behind her back, and 
sighed. " Think now," said I to myself, "if 
she put on a tone half-injured and half-sub- 
missive, and should say: ''Well, I suppose it 
is my father's will, and I must submit to it,' 
should I not answer, amused at such mistaken 
meekness : ' Nay, little one, you are wrong. 
It is altogether against your father's will. 
Your father's will is that you should be in the 
garden shouting and playing with the others, 
as merry as you can live ; but you have gone 
against your father's will and now your father's 
will has gone against you ' ? " 

And as I turned it over I thought I saw 
where all the crosses come from. When 
God's will goes one way and ours goes another 
there is the cross. When God's will and mine 



160 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

are one the cross is lost. There never need 
be a cross at all ; if there is we must take it 
up ; but it is our fault if there is, and only 
ours. " No cross no crown " is on many- 
ancient bookmarks, but it is not in the Bible. 
We made the one great cross which Christ 
hath borne for us, and now if our will be alto- 
gether pne with God's will there is no cross 
for us to carry, and already the crown is ours. 

Already the crown is ours — for, what makes 
heaven ? Not white robes, not golden streets, 
not harps and anthems. Get in at some 
thought of it that shall satisfy us. What 
makes heaven ? Is it not this — this only : 
the eternal harmony of wills ! God's will 
and man's will forever flowing on together, 
making heaven's music. " Why," you say, 
" I may have that down here/' Of course we 
may, blessed be God ! It is the golden key of 
heaven itself which is held out to us here, and 
we may enter in and dwell in the rest and joy 
of the paradise of God. 

And what is hell ? God grant we may 
never know. I can think that hell is the eter- 
nal collision of wills. Man's will forever rising 
up defiant of God's will. And God, in his 



Consecrated and Transformed. 161 

majestic authority, forever putting down the 
rebel will of man. Ah, you think, we may 
have that here ! We may ; and this it is that 
makes the madness and distraction of many a 
human life. All things else have some rest, 
some harmony; but how many a human soul 
is tossed and torn and rent by this defiance of 
God and his will ! 

And now, dear reader, here is a thing to be 
done. It shall help us nothing — only, indeed, 
hinder and burden us — to know all this, to 
believe it all, and yet stop short of doing it. 
Better never to have heard it than to leave it a 
mere text for a sermon. Listen once more to 
the appeal: "I beseech you therefore, breth- 
ren, by the mercies of God, that ye present 
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
unto God, which is your reasonable service." 
What a grim and hideous mockery it is if any 
man should content himself with reading this 
exposition of the text, as if that were all ! 
Reader, it is a thing to be done. Will you 
do it ? You will find it well and helpful to 
make it a formal act. Write out the text as a 
message from God requiring an answer. 

Think of all that it means, and then write 
11 



1 62 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

your reply in God's own presence. To have it 
deliberately written in black and white is to 
make the act so much more definite and so 
much more real. Set the date upon it, and then 
sign your name as having made yourself over to 
God. Do it now, while yet the thought is in 
the mind, and the holy purpose prompts you. 
Do it in sight of the cross of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, finding alike the strength 
of this entreaty and the strength for your own 
consecration and faithfulness in " the mercies 
of God." Do not look for any great manifes- 
tation or sudden change. Your part is the sur- 
render of yourself to God ; if you do your 
part, be quite sure that he will do his. The 
renewing of the mind is a gradual and con- 
tinuous work. Only let us so live as to let 
God have his own way with us, and then be 
assured that the transformation is begun, and 
will go on until we be made in all things and 
altogether like unto our blessed Lord, to 
whom be glory forever. Amen. 



Behind Him — Before Him. 163 



CHAPTER IX. 

BEHIND HIM— BEFORE HIM. 

THE words occur in St. Luke's gospel : 
" And a woman having an issue of blood 
twelve years, which had spent all her living 
upon physicians, neither could be healed of 
any, came behind him, and touched the border 
of his garment : and immediately her issue of 
blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched 
me ? When all denied, Peter and they that 
were with him said, Master, the multitude 
throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, 
Who touched me? And Jesus said, Some- 
body hath touched me : for I have perceived 
that virtue is gone out of me. And when the 
woman saw that she was not hid, she came 
trembling, and falling down before him she 
declared unto him before all the people for 
what cause she had touched him, and how she 
was healed immediately. And he said unto 
her, Daughter, be of good comfort : thy faith 
hath made thee whole ; go in peace. M 



164 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

She came behind him. But the Lord Jesus 
could not suffer her to stay there — unwelcomed, 
never seeing his face, never hearing his voice, 
never knowing the great love that filled his 
heart toward her ; knowing only the healing 
virtue that lay in the fringe of his garment, 
and taking it, like a guilty thing, by stealth. 
He could not let her go away thus. He could 
not rest, himself, could not let her rest, until 
he brought her round before him. 

There are many behind him, afraid. The 
blessed life is ever before him. Let us follow 
the story. It was away in one of the little 
fishing towns on the Sea of Galilee. About 
the rough stone pier the groups of fishermen 
gather ; and there are the boats, and sails, and 
nets, and all the fishing gear. The narrow 
street goes sloping up from the water's edge. 
Here is the home of Jairus : very sad are all 
within there. The only daughter, a little 
maiden of twelve, lies dying. All hope is 
gone, they say. Ah ! there goes Jairus him- 
self. Stepping out anxiously from the door- 
way, pale-faced, red-eyed, he is gone forth to 
look for Jesus, eagerly hoping to find him be- 
fore the little daughter has breathed her last. 



Behind Him — Before Him. 165 

But our way lies in the poorest part of the 
town. Here, in a single room, stripped by 
want, sits a poor woman, wasted and white as 
death; her sorrow graven deep on her face, 
and all about her telling of poverty and 
wretchedness. And sitting here she hears 
from the court outside the gossip of the neigh- 
bors. 

11 The doctors have given her up," says one ; 
" she can't live through the day, they say. 
And only twelve, poor little thing ! Her father 
is gone out to look for this Jesus of Nazareth 
who has done so many wonderful cures. A 
great crowd was waiting for him at the pier 
when I came by ; they say that he is coming 
across from the Gadarene country." 

44 It is wonderful what this great Prophet 
does," says the good-wife of next door. " They 
say that he never sends away any sick without 
curing them ; no matter what ails them, or 
how long they have been ill, he heals them 
at once." 

So with the sunshine and the chirping of the 
birds there came these words upon the poor 
woman's soul. She sighs within herself — 
11 Ah, if I were only like Jairus, only great and 



1 66 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

rich as he is ! Of course, this wonderful 
Prophet will go to his house directly — he is 
the ruler of the Synagogue." 

Then the sad eyes go wandering round the 
wretched room, and she sighs again. " Ah, if 
I only had somebody to speak to him for me ! " 
And then she stops. Well she may. Not 
poor only — much more than that. By the 
law her sickness made her unclean, defiled. 
She was forbiden to touch any. And yet 
she longed to be made whole. She wanted 
help as much as Jairus did. All her money 
spent upon the doctors, her strength all gone, 
and yet work had to be done or she must 
starve ; she needed help and healing if ever any 
did. Then her face brightens with a new 
hope. Could she not come near him without 
his knowing ? Of course this holy man would 
be very angry if he knew it ; but she would 
try and get behind him, and only touch the 
hem of his garment. He would not know. 
And then, he was so good it really could not 
do him any harm. So she rises, determined to 
go forth and try ; saying within herself, "If I 
may but touch the hem of his garment I shall 
be made whole," 



Behind Him — Before Him. 167 

She comes on her way, thinking only of her 
hinderances and the methods to which they 
compelled her to resort. She was poor, and 
she could not expect this Jesus of Nazareth, 
that every body was talking about, to care for 
her. She was weak ; and the world seemed to 
be all for the strong, and the pushing, and the 
clever. And then he was very holy, and she 
was unclean; she must not let him see her. 
How angry he would be if knew ! If she 
only touched a priest or a Pharisee it would 
be dreadful ; and he was much holier than they 
were. 

Here is a picture of many timid souls, who 
never can think that the Lord Jesus cares for 
them. They do not wonder that he blesses 
other people. Others are good and wise. 
Others have faith, earnestness, love ! Ah, if 
they themselves were only like other people, 
then, they think, they might get any thing. 
But for such as they are, so weak, and so sin- 
ful, and so far off — the promises cannot be 
meant for them. And if ever they are blest it 
must be in a kind of hidden way, just a trem- 
bling touch of the hem of his garment. They 
wouldn't presume to ask for more than the 



1 68 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

outermost salvation possible. But for that 
they do long with all their hearts, and they 
venture forth timidly to look for it. Come, 
see how these fearing ones may hope to fare. 

The woman creeps away out of the court and 
to the end of the street. And now the crowd 
is coming. Here are sturdy fishermen who 
tread on each other's heels. Here are moth- 
ers, anxious to let their children look upon 
the great Prophet ; here are lads and maidens 
thrusting their way through. Poor woman ! 
Weak as she is, what can she expect but to be 
pushed hither and thither? How can she 
ever hope to get near him ? Then, for a mo- 
ment she has a glimpse of him, so far off from 
her. And there beside him is Jairus. Ah, if 
she were only great and rich ! Then suddenly, 
she knows not how, the surging crowd thrust 
her close to him. The robe sweeps within her 
reach. Forth goes that withered finger and 
thumb, and timidly touches the hem of his 
garment. It was but a moment ; and lo, it 
was all done ! Through her she felt the 
bounding tide of a new life ; with a glad new 
strength, amazing and delicious, she lifts her- 
self up, made whole. 



Behind Him — Before Him. 169 

Ah! there is a sight worth looking at. In 
spite of poverty, and in spite of weakness, and 
in spite of the crowd, she manages to get to 
the great Prophet, and is made whole. Thank 
God, it is always so ; always. The earnest 
search for him can never be in vain. Here suc- 
cess is certain and assured. " Seek, and ye 
shall find." 

Every-where else we may deserve success 
without winning it, but not here. Never 
yet did any soul set out earnestly to look for 
Jesus, in vain. Some angel guide, some silvery 
star, some Philip waiting in the desert, some 
vision in the night, some casual word dropped 
somewhere, some sweet promise spoken to the 
innermost heart, some unexpected but unmis- 
takable presence of the Lord meets them. 
He will be found pf those who seek him ; and, 
more than that, he doth devise means to 
restore his banished ones. 

She came ignorantly. She came secretly ; as 
if to steal the blessing. She meant to go 
away again without so much as thanking him. 
She seems to have had a very superstitious 
notion of the cloak and its hem. And yet she 
found him. Ah ! they who wait till they can 



170 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

come perfectly will never come at all. Never 
mind how you come — only come. 

She has got what she wanted, and now, 
dreading lest he should get to know that she 
had touched him, she tries to make her way 
as fast as she can out of the crowd. She is 
behind him, or she never could have feared. 
See that gracious Lord as he stands for a 
moment, every thing about him proclaiming 
the great love that yearns to bless all men. 
A face of infinite compassion ; eyes that melt 
with graciousness ; lips from which drop such 
words of yearning pity ; hands stretched out 
in eager readiness to do good — and all the 
time this poor woman is behind him, trem- 
bling lest he should happen to see her! Be- 
hind him, and looking only at the hem of his 
garment ! 

He could not leave her there. The poorer 
the comer, the tenderer his welcome ; the 
lower the suppliant, the lower is he ready 
to stoop. She must see his face ; must know 
his heart. She had sought and taken the 
blessing as if it were grudged ; she must have 
it with a fullness of grace. She had come 
with fear and trembling; she must go away 



Behind Him — Before Him. 1 7 1 

with the music of his words filling her soul — 
" Daughter, be of good cheer." 

This is the picture of thousands of earnest 
but timid souls : they are behind him. They 
have a salvation, and yet they do not know 
him. Saved, yet they never see his face, 
never hear his voice ; they have no living 
communion with him. They think of him, 
and believe in him, and adore him, as the Son 
of God who died on the cross in his infinite 
mercy ; and now he has gone up into his high 
glory to intercede for them, and at last to re- 
ceive them into his majestic presence. So 
far away, so poor and fearful, all they can 
hope for is to touch the healing hem which 
reaches low enough for their trembling hands. 
Promises exceeding precious, and prayers, and 
blessed sacraments, and hallowed means of 
grace, these are theirs, and through these 
virtue goes out of him which makes them 
whole. They hold to the doctrine about him, 
they celebrate the glorious memory of his 
death and passion, and look onward to his 
coming again, and in these they find most 
truly a healing power. And yet all this can 
neither satisfy him nor satisfy us. 



172 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

We touch only that which is outside and 
away from him. " If a man love me " — not 
the touch of faith only, not the finger and 
thumb on the hem of his garment, but love 
me — the whole heart going out after him and 
finding him, and resting in him — " If a man 
love me, he will keep my words, and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him." That is 
what he seeks, and that is what we need ; hav- 
ing not only his healing virtue, but his great love 
as our own ; himself as an abiding presence. 

Now Jesus stops in the midst of the surging 
crowd and looks about him. Silence falls on 
all as he asks, " Who touched me ? " Then 
comes a longer hush. Poor woman, how her 
heart thumps within her ! How her guilt 
seizes her and fills her with trembling fear ; 
Then Peter, swift to speak, puts in a word at 
which she grasps eagerly : " Master, the people 
throng thee and press thee." But Jesus, still 
looking about him, saith only, " Somebody 
hath touched me. I perceive that virtue is 
gone out of me." How angry Jesus will be 
with her ! How indignant the people will be 
that she should have touched him ! 



Behind Him — Before Him, 173 

" And when she saw that she was not hid." 
The trembling seeker after Jesus cannot be 
hid. Jostled, and elbowed in the crowd ; tim- 
idly crouching at the Master's back ; trem- 
blingly touching the hem of his garment, 
where no eye can overlook her, and while 
none suspect ; yet she cannot be hid. Igno- 
rant she may be, foolish, sinful, driven hither 
and thither by the press, yet, blessed be God ! 
the seeker after Jesus cannot be hid. 

Then she came trembling, and fell down be- 
fore him. Now she is in the right place. 
Behind him she kept her great want hushed 
up and hidden — her burden of weakness and 
shame. But now at his feet, before his face, 
with those pure eyes looking her through and 
through, what could she do but just tell him 
all about herself, for what cause she had come, 
and how she had touched him? 

Behind him we cannot see ourselves any 
more than we can see him. We are in his 
shadow. Our secret sins are set in the light 
of his countenance. We may seek a place of 
repentance with tears, but find none until we 
fall down before him. We may dwell in the 
fire of Sinai seeking to get the heart melted ; 



174 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

we may smite at it fiercely with upbraiding 
and shame, but that will not break it. It is in 
sight of his holy presence that our sin appears 
so black and hateful. It is when he bends 
over us, not in wrath, not in condemnation, 
but in grief, that our sin begins to hurt us. 
It is beside his tender patience that we feel 
the anguish of our quick temper, and our 
hasty words. It is there, in the very presence 
of the Truth himself, that we are stricken 
through and through with our falseness, and 
foulness, and folly. 

And does it seem for a moment to some 
hasty thought that it might be well for us to 
be spared such humiliation, alike for our own 
sake and for others? A great and gracious 
forgiveness does not need to magnify itself by 
making the most of the offender. Sun-like, 
he needs no black foil to set off his grace and 
bounty. Ah ! how far away was his mind from 
any such thought as this ! All his thought, 
all his heart were with her ; eager to bless her, 
indeed. He was not counting aloud the 
wealth he was going to give her, but only de- 
vising the means by which he could fill her 
with good things. 



Behind Him — Before Him. 175 

Think if she had escaped unnoticed from 
the crowd ; conveying with her the delicious 
secret of her being made whole, yet going 
away with that false thought of Jesus : u Ah, 
if he only knew, what would he say ! " Why, 
she would have lost much more than she 
found. She would have never known his 
heart of love. 

And think, again, how to her generous 
womanly heart this very gift of healing behind 
him might have become — and would, I think 
— a grievous burden. Henceforth her heart 
would be bound to him by a deeper interest 
and an eager regard all the more intense and 
constant because of its secrecy ; bound by that 
touch as if her trembling hand still held the 
sacred hem. How she would inquire concern- 
ing him ! And now think of her coming to 
hear of his great sorrow, of his rejection by 
the chief priests and Pharisees, of his awful 
agony and shame on Calvary — and she had 
touched him with her defiling hand ! had 
filched from him the gift of healing ! There 
are gifts that come to madden men. And 
completing the grief would come another 
thought, and yet a greater burden: u He 



176 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

healed me, and I never thanked him ! To think 
that they cried, 4 Away with him/ that they 
mocked him with hoarse voices, that they 
crucified him ! Ah, how a word of my thanks 
might have soothed him, and how I might 
have ministered unto him ! And he is gone!" 

But let us turn and see how she fares here 
before him. Her confession is ended ; a 
dreadful silence falls on the crowd. What 
will he do ? thinks she, stricken with terror. 
Will he take away the healing and add to it 
some new terror, like Gehazi's leprosy? Then 
all his great love bent over her — he must 
surely have laid his hands upon her — spoke to 
her, with such an infinite compassion as earth 
had never heard the like of, words that seemed 
to sink down into her soul, filling her with 
heaven's own light and music : 

" Daughter, be of good cheer. Thy faith 
hath made thee whole." 

That is where the blessed Lord is ever seek- 
ing to bring us : before him, where we can see 
his face, where we can hear his voice, where 
we can have the touch of his hand, and where 
we can know the greatness of that love which 
passeth knowledge. He would lift upon us 



Behind Him— Before Him. 177 

the light of his countenance and give us peace. 
This only can satisfy him — this only can sat- 
isfy us. 

Once more. Before him is the place of 
usefulness. So long as she was behind him no 
one but herself knew any thing of her being 
healed, and her great anxiety was that no one 
should know. What good could she ever do 
to any one, a poor weak soul such as she was ? 
Her place was behind him, of course. 

There often is a certain selfishness in the 

earlier stages of salvation. We come to 

Christ for our own sakes: seeking forgiveness, 

hope, safety, and perhaps with no thought 

beyond these. Faith does not fail because 

the object is a selfish one. The mistake, the 

sadness, is not when the soul comes thus to 

Christ — it is when thus it goes away. The 

mistake is when our blind faith lives on, and 

there is nothing more; no growing love, no 

devotion that leaves self more and more 

behind, the soul stretching out after him, 

Faith is a failure unless it brings us before 

him, to pass our life in steadfast love to 

our dear Lord, and in true helpfulness for 

others. There, before him, she, poor and 
12 



178 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

weak, rendered a mighty service for the ruler 
of the synagogue, who seemed in need of 
nothing. For while Jesus is busy with her 
poor Jairus is overwhelmed with the bitter 
tidings that reach him from home. Through 
the crowd there comes one who whispers, 
" Trouble not the Master ; thy daughter is 
dead." It is a scene worth looking at. On 
one side that presence which throws its black 
shadow over the ruler ; at one ear the words 
that send despair into his soul. On the other 
side there is the Light, there is the Lord him- 
self, and on that ear fall the words of author- 
ity, " Thy faith hath made thee whole." On 
one side the sleeve is pulled, and the cold 
words freeze his soul. On the other side the 
gracious Master's hand is laid on him. There 
Jairus sees what faith has done for the afflicted 
woman. " Believe, only, and thy daughter 
shall live." And in that hour that poor 
woman lifted up and strengthened the faith of 
Jairus to receive his little daughter from the 
dead. 

She lives on, in the traditions of the early 
Church, ever before him. On that dreadful 
day when he went forth in the crowd bearing 



Behind Him — Before Him. 1 79 

his cross, in awful shame and agony, it is said 
that she stepped forth from out that clamorous 
mob and wiped with loving hands that sacred 
face, disfigured with sweat and blood. And 
the oldest Church historian tells that he 
himself had seen, outside her house in farther 
Galilee, a bronze image in which she had set 
forth the memorable scene of her healing ; a 
perpetual tribute of her love, and a perpetual 
token of her Saviour's grace and power. 



180 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



* CHAPTER X. 

LOVE. 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy 
mind." — St. Luke x, 27. 

THESE are wonderful words, perhaps the 
most wonderful earth ever listened to. If 
they were not so familiar we should think of 
them, and if we did but think about them ever 
so little they could scarcely fail to fill us with 
amazement. 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." 
These words never came from men. Earth 
never could have heard them if they had not 
come down from heaven. They are far away 
from our thoughts and our ways ; a whole 
heaven above them. There are among us 
many voices that say, " Thou shalt : " the 
voice of the master, " Thou must serve me ; " 
the king's voice, " I am thy sovereign, honor 
me ; " the demand of the tyrant, " I am 
mightier than thou art, do my will ; " the 



Love. 181 

priest's cry, " These are thy gods ; bring sac- 
rifice and offering, and fear before them/' 

But love ; what has love to do with the busy, 
the ambitious, the great ? Love is for the lit- 
tle, or for the weak and sentimental, or at 
best for equals, and for leisure. Authority 
wants clever servants, and brave soldiers, and 
a patient people who will pay taxes without 
ado ; admiring, perhaps, the brilliant policy 
that has involved such outlay of men and 
money. 

But lo, into our midst he comes who made 
us, who gave us every power and possession. 
Here is the King of kings and Lord of lords; 
the supreme Ruler of angels and of princes, of 
peoples, and of all principalities and powers. 
If men make such demands on fellow-men, 
what shall he require ? Listen to his voice : 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart ! " 

Here we see the very heart of God. He is 
Love who speaketh thus, for only love holds 
love so dear; placing it not only in the fore- 
front of the commandments, but making it the 
fulfilling of the law. Let us look into it with 
the eyes of the heart, until v/e feel the truth 



1 82 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

of it. Only love seeks love ; only love wins 
love; only love satisfies love. Here see the 
very nature of God. And here see our nature 
too. He who is our lawgiver is our maker, 
and he has exactly adapted us to the require- 
ments of his law. Let this too sink down into 
our souls, stirring us ; our God who commands 
us, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God/' has 
given us every faculty we possess for this one 
end ; for this we are what we are, and where 
we are, and as we are. Heart and mind and 
soul and strength are made for this : to love 
God perfectly. Blessed be God for this. As 
much as the eye is made for seeing and the 
ear for hearing, so our whole nature is fitted 
and adapted to this one glorious end : to love 
God perfectly. Sin had wrought within us a 
horrible mischief, and left us with the curse of 
the deceiver upon us, " Ye shall be as gods ; " 
and self had come to be the poor low object 
of all our love, the aim of all our life. But 
now we are redeemed, bought back, and set 
free for God again ; and all the great work of 
our salvation leads us right on and up to this : 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart." 



Love. 183 

As we look into these words let us earnestly 
ask for the Holy Spirit's help. To talk coldly 
about the outermost things, the fringe of our 
Master's robe, were a shame to us ; but to be 
cold and dull when we muse on such a sub- 
ject as this were a shame and a sin indeed. 
Come, blessed Spirit, and shed abroad the 
love of God in our hearts, and through and 
through us let us know this truth ! 

This is the first and great commandment, 
because all else flows from it. First, not only 
because God is what he is, but also because we 
are what we are ; for what are we but little 
children, bewildered with the mysteries about 
us : whence things come, and whither they go, 
and what they mean? Puzzled by the alpha- 
bet of things, what can we know of the 
Almighty, of his ways, and of his works ? 
But, though it cannot understand, the little 
child can love ; love with a perfect trust and 
joy and thankfulness. Oh ! can we ever hope 
to know God ? Can we ever worthily rever- 
ence him ? Can we ever serve him as do the 
angels that excel in strength ? But we can 
love him, and this is what he asks. And this 
is the beginning of all knowledge and of all 



1 84 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

service. It is only when I see that I can love 
God that I can come to him and serve him at 
all. Tell me of his holiness — how just and 
righteous he is — and I can but hide myself in 
fear. Tell me of his wisdom — how he spieth 
out my guilt and knoweth my hiding-place — 
and I despair. Tell me of his almighty power, 
and what can I say? "Let not God speak to 
me lest I die." But tell me that he asks my 
love, then I draw near to him, sure that he 
loves me. And when once I know his love, 
all that God is, all that God can be, stands 
about me to complete my blessedness. His 
holiness is but the purity of his love — the 
pledge of his faithfulness. His power is but 
the mighty arm that doth encompass me. 
His wisdom is but the tender care that reads 
my every want. Tell me that he asks my 
love, then I can come near to him, wondering, 
unworthy, yet to take him as my own, and to 
give myself to him. So all true religion at 
once grows out of this first and great com- 
mandment and leads up to it ; reverence, trust, 
obedience, love, joy, peace, all begin here. 

Let us set this commandment before us in 
its exceeding greatness. It is a command- 



Love. 185 

ment. Do not think of it as a privilege that 
some few may be able to enjoy, but for most 
of us only a point up toward which we are to 
aim. Here is the law of the Lord by which 
we are already judged, a law which stretches 
back over all the past of our lives ; the stan- 
dard by which every aim and desire and effort, 
every word and every deed is measured. Here 
is the great first commandment. 

Do not put it away from you as hopeless 
and unattainable. Do not try to bring it down 
to some poor rendering which makes this word 
mean nothing. Here it stands in the might 
of its authority : " Thou " — it comes to each of 
us away by ourselves ; " thou shalt love " — 
it claims the innermost being for God ; %i thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart " 
— it claims every desire and every delight ; 
" thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart and mind and soul and strength " — it 
claims for God every thing that is within us ; 
every power and possibility of our nature. 

And how do we meet this great command- 
ment ? Think how dreadfully possible, how 
easy, it is for us to be religious with an exact 
and constant round of religion that has no 



1 86 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

breath of love in it. Well may we tremble 
and fear. How readily we slip into the love- 
less round of prayer and service ! We are 
trained ta religious habits ; we are surrounded 
by influences that tend to outward forms of 
devotion ; how often and how easily these 
may be put in place of the real living heart 
union with the Lord ! Or, indeed, our relig- 
ion may be another and worse form of selfish- 
ness — a seeking to save myself, and securing 
for myself in this world and the next as much 
happiness as I can. All this may be without 
a glow or throb of real love to the Lord ; 
blind to the beauties of the Altogether 
Lovely; never even thinking of the close and 
abiding communion and relationship into 
which God is ever seeking to bring us. Ah, 
and worst of all, how often does the religious 
life that begins in true love to God cool down 
and harden into a loveless, lifeless round of 
formalism ! 

Love — why, at its lowest it means that our 
hearts go out after him in eager desire. It 
means that we linger in his presence with a 
great delight. It means that we find our 
truest, purest, fullest joy in pleasing him, and 



Love. 187 

that we hold his favor as better than life. 
This is the great claim with which our God 
meets each of us. Think of this command- 
ment going back over the whole life, in all its 
daily round, at home, in business, in pleasure, 
every-where, in every thing ; over the days of 
cold indifference, when we were too dull to 
hear the voice that called for us. Think of 
the great love from which this commandment 
flows met by our poor formalities, our heart- 
less worship, our easy forgetfulness, our con- 
tented distance from our God ; and all the 
time this is what was possible to us and what 
was required of us: " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart." 

Consider earnestly how we are to keep this 
commandment. 

As only love seeks so only love wins love. 
You cannot compel love by commanding it. 
God himself cannot make us love him by tell- 
ing us to. Love will be slave to none. It 
cannot wear a fetter. Love is the God-like 
faculty within us ; of the high royalty of 
heaven, it yields only to love. Above all 
price, all command, never wrung by any threat 
or moved by any fear, love cannot be bound. 



1 88 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

So God comes to us not with command only, 
he seeks our love in the only way in which it 
can be won. He reveals himself as the ut- 
terly loveworthy. Love has no other source 
or spring than this. We love him because he 
first loved us. There is only one way in which 
we come to love God. It is not by looking 
within and lecturing ourselves upon our duty. 
It is not by rules and exercises in the religious 
life. It is not by emotions and feelings into 
which we can force ourselves. It is possible 
for us to stir the heart to a flaming forth of 
strong desires, soon sinking down again into 
the smoking flax. But the even flow of true 
love to God can only come from knowing him 
as the Altogether Lovely. We must kindle 
our fire at the flame of his great love to us. 

Do you remember the story in the old time, 
how Absalom stole the hearts of the men of 
Israel ? He wanted to be king, but he knew 
that it was of no use to hire a score or two of 
fellows to blow a trumpet, and to hoist a flag, 
and to shout, " Absalom is king." You can't 
make kings by shouting. Thus Absalom set 
himself to be throned in the hearts of the men 
of Israel : Rising up early in the morning, 



Love. 1 89 

he stood in the gateway of the city there, in 
the fresh and dewy dawn, handsome, noble- 
looking, arrayed so as to set himself off to 
most advantage. Then, when any man came 
up from the country seeking a hearing from 
the king, forth came Absalom, and met him in 
the gateway with kindly greeting, and asked 
him how he was, and as to why he came ; and 
as the countryman told his tale Absalom 
would sigh sadly, and look grieved on his 
account — " Ah, my friend, I only wish that I 
were king, I would see you righted/' " I 
wish you were, sir, with all my heart/' said 
the plain man from the country, thinking that 
he had never seen such a pleasant gentleman 
before. And when the man went home again 
he told of his kindness and of the gracious 
words, spreading his good opinion of Absa- 
lom. So did the prince day after day, week 
after week, month after month, until he stole 
the hearts of the men of Israel. Then when 
the trumpet was blown thousands were ready 
at once to rally round his standard, and all 
the people went with him to make him king. 

A contrast as well as an illustration ; forth 
to us there cometh one sent of the Father's 



190 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, 

love, the Only Begotten, full of truth and grace. 
He meeteth us in the gate with kindly greet- 
ing. He asketh kindly concerning our wel- 
fare. Never was there one so brotherly. 
And lo ! when he hath heard the story of our 
sin and grief and shame and fear, he giveth us 
not words of good-will only, and vain wishes ; 
he showeth us how that he hath stood in our 
place ; how that he hath borne our sins in his 
body on the tree ; how that he by the grace 
of God hath won for us a free pardon ; and he 
bringeth us, accepted^into the presence of the 
King, and giveth us ten thousand glorious 
promises of blessedness in his presence and at 
his right hand. 

Ah, it is in sight of the cross that love is 
born. Hereby perceive we the love of God, 
because he laid down his life for us. Herein 
is love: not that we loved God, but that he 
loved us and sent his Son to be the propitia- 
tion for our sins. It is in tarrying here and 
gazing upon this wondrous love, and musing 
upon it, that the fire of our love is enkindled. 

Only love satisfies love, is another precious 
truth for us. His love will hold very dear the 
poor offering of our lives and service. What 



Love. 191 

love touches it turns to more than gold. Have 
you ever thought, in all the world's eagerness 
for wealth, its conflicts and crowds, its hoarded 
gains, its coveted possessions, its pride and 
glitter and show, what are earth's most treas- 
ured possessions? Is it not this: the love of 
some faithful heart ; the simple, quiet ways 
of love to greet one, day by day ; the prattle 
of the little child — ah, and, even more sa- 
credly treasured — a lock of hair, a faded por- 
trait, a bit of work enriched by the touch of a 
vanished hand ? The mite from the hand of 
love can buy all the costly gifts of the treasury. 
Poor, empty, worthless is the best service that 
we can give to our God ; but if it spring from 
love, and if his love accept it, then his love 
makes much of it, and holds it very dear. 
Our broken service is presented in love's 
casket, and in that the least is very much. 
Let his love embolden thy love. It is the 
God of love who gives the command, " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy. God with all thy 
heart." 

But, blessed and helpful as this is, it is not 
enough. There is but one way in which we 
can keep this commandment. It is not graven 



192 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

upon a granite stone, in hard, sharp letters. 
There is One who has fulfilled the law ; who is 
ever fulfilling it ; and he comes to dwell in 
us, to be in us the Life as well as the Truth. 
It is in taking the Lord Jesus as our strength 
for obedience that we learn to keep the law. 

Reach out the hand of faith again ; he is 
our Saviour from the weakness, the coldness, 
the fickleness of our nature. This life of per- 
fect love is ours when we receive the Lord 
Jesus, the living Saviour, as come to fulfill the* 
law in us and through us. 

As God's love is the source of our love, so 
it is the pattern of our love. We love him 
because he loved us. See to it that it is love 
like his ; of the same nature though not of the 
same degree; as the sun is imaged in the dew- 
drop. God's love is never a mere feeling, it is 
not a pity only, a sympathy. It flows forth in 
blessing ; it is ceaselessly active. Here is the 
nature of all true love, its essence. God so 
loved the world that he gave — love must 
give ; that he gave his only-begotten Son — 
love must give its best and dearest, its all ; 
that we should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life ; — love cannot rest till it has secured 



Love. 193 

the safety and blessedness of the beloved. 
Such is the love wherewith we must love him. 
Beware of mere emotions and desires, and 
vague longings and sentimental dreamings. 
Love that is only a feeling is but a name. Let 
us not love in word only, but in deed and in 
truth. Here are three marks that must dis- 
tinguish our love, or it is but an empty thing. 

To love God with all the heart is to delight 
in pleasing him. 

God's love to us leads him to bend over us, 

making all things work together for good, and 

leading us on to the fullness of blessedness at 

his right hand. The heaven of love is in the 

joy of the beloved. Its hell is in the beloved's 

grief. Loving God with all the heart is to set 

his will before us as our joy, and by all things 

and in all things to please him ; it is to hate 

sin with a great abhorrence, because it hath 

slain him who is our dearest friend and Saviour. 

Trying to do the little things of life in such a 

way as to please him, bearing what we must 

bear, sharing what we can share, helping all, 

forgiving all, denying ourselves, holding and 

using all things as from him and for him — 

sacred alike in their origin and purpose — this 
13 



194 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

is to love God with all the heart, this is what 
God commands. Our obedience is to come 
flowing up from this well-spring. We love the 
Father, and as he gives us commandment 
even so we do. 

To love God with all the heart is to delight 
most of all in his presence. Here, too, God's 
love is the pattern for ours. His great love can- 
not rest until it has gathered all his children 
about him in peace and joy. When God's love 
could flow unhindered into the world, this is 
the scene that meets us; Paradise, wherein 
the Father comes to walk and talk with his 
child. Then there is the fall, with its separa- 
tion from God and the being driven forth. 
But slowly love works on, undoing the sin, 
until we reach the last picture in the Book of 
Life. There the heavenly Father has gath- 
ered the children at home again in the Father's 
house. He must have their presence ; they go 
out no more forever. There his love welcomes 
them with all blessedness; they hunger no more, 
neither thirst any more. It is only when the 
Father's arms have clasped the son to his heart, 
and brought him home in safety, that there 
comes the merry-making and the great joy. 



Love. 195 

And this love God asks from us ; to love 
him so as to mkke his presence a delight. 
The highest heaven is to be more than gold 
and gems, fruits and streams. The fullness of 
joy is at his right hand, the blessedness for 
evermore is in his presence. 

And, lastly, to love God with all the heart is 
to hold ourselves and all we are as belonging 
to him. This is love's unfailing character, 
that it has nothing of its own. Hereby per- 
ceive we the love of God, be'cause he laid down 
his life for us. That was the proof of love. 
And this is always the true love-token, the 
token of true love ; it will spare nothing for 
the blessedness of those that it loves with the 
whole heart. And to love God with all the 
heart is to hold ourselves and all we have — 
family, home, property, good name, health, 
reason, life, influence, talents, time — all 
stamped with the crest and motto of heaven. 
The cross is graven thereon, and underneath 
the legend, " We are not our own ; we are 
bought with a price." 
\ 



196 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER XL 

REST. 

il He maketh me to lie down." — PsA. xxiii, 2. 
" I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down t 
saith the Lord God." — Ezek. xxxiv, 15. 

" Maketh me to He down." If there is any 
one thing that a sheep can do for itself, surely 
it is just that — lying down. A sheep may 
want feeding ; it may want leading ; it may 
need to be delivered out of the hand of many 
enemies ; it may need bringing back to the 
fold ; but, lying down — surely it is able to do 
that for itself! 

Ah, so we think, and so we never come to 
the Lord for this great gift and grace. And 
all the time it is the Lord's own secret, which 
he keepeth ever to himself. The sheep are 
always seeking to lie down, and they cannot. 
The world is always trying to find this power, 
but in vain. The tempter would sell almost 
any thing in his realm if he could but buy 



Rest. 197 

this knowledge — how to make his sheep lie 
down. 

I was leaning over a gate one day watching 
the flock as they rested in the green pastures. 
" When do your sheep lie down, shepherd ? " 
said I. " Well," said he, " I don't know; I 
suppose it is when they have had enough." 

Only the Lord can give his sheep that. 

Presently there came the master of the flock. 
"When do your sheep lie down?" I asked. 
" Only when they are very comfortable," said 
he ; and even as he spoke they rose up 
frightened, and hurried together for protection, 
because the dog was looking in at the gate. 

Only the Lord can make his sheep lie down. 
And this is the first thing — not the last. " He 
maketh me to lie down," then " he leadeth 
me." Many of us have a private version of this 
Psalm which runs thus : He leads me until I 
am dreadfully tired, and then he lets me lie 
down for a little while. No ! Listen to the 
sweet music of the song : He maketh me to 
lie down, then he leadeth me. Stay, timid 
soul ; you think that to follow him means a 
panting journey across a desert place, foot-sore, 
thirsty, urged on by fear of the night and 



1 9$ Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

beasts of prey, with the shepherd himself ever 
so far on before thee, and moving so quickly 
that thou, poor wearied one, canst scarce keep 
him in sight ! Oh, the worry, the burden, the 
fretting that religion is to many ! Rest ? no, 
indeed. It is a wearied effort, dragging tired 
steps forever up a steep hill and fearing that 
they will never get to the top ! Ah, before 
you take a step he would have you at rest 
with him. " Lie down, dear child," saith he ; 
" lie down ; my service is n6t weariness, but 
rest ; lie down, then ; when thy fears are 
gone to sleep and thou hast learned my love, 
then will I lead thee." 

There is the same wonderful tenderness in 
the blessed Lord's own words; " Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest " — then " learn of me." 
" Rest first, and then I can teach thee," 
saith he. 

See, into the school here comes the new 
scholar — a timid little fellow, with frightened 
eyes, looking round on all the clever boys and 
girls, wondering if he will ever get to know so 
much as they do ; burdened and bewildered 
by the maps and boards and all the signs of 



Rest. 199 

learning that every-where look down so sternly 
on him, making him feel quite guilty at being 
so ignorant. So dull, so stupid as he feels 
himself, poor little lad, he wonders if he will 
ever get through the mysteries of the alpha- 
bet, or if he will ever get up the slippery 
heights of the multiplication table. Ah ! see, 
here comes the gentle mistress, without book 
or cane, and draws the frightened little scholar 
to her side with pleasant smile and merry 
words, and begins to tell him a story, and 
makes him forget that he is at school ; and 
then when he is at home with her she opens 
a book and teaches him a lesson without his 
ever guessing that he is learning any thing. 
This is just the blessed Master's own method. 
" Rest — then learn of me." Come and know 
first of all my patient gentleness and love, 
then I can teach thee ; this first, not last. 
" He maketh me to lie down/' then he leadeth 
me. He who hath not learned to rest hath 
not learned how to learn. He who knows not 
how he makes us to lie down knows not how 
to follow him. 

Note well where the resting place is. Some 
time since I was driving across the Cornish 



200 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

moors, when my friend who was with me 
pointed to a greener slope between the rocky- 
hills. " My father owned some land here 
when I was a boy/* said he, " and many a 
time I have ridden over these moors looking 
for the sheep ; I generally found them on that 
slope." "Why there?" I asked. Then he 
showed me how that two high hills rose up 
and sheltered it from the north and east, 
and how that the slope faced the south, so 
that they found it warmer, and the early 
young green grass grew there. 

Some time afterward that pleasant picture 
of the hills happened to come back to my 
mind, and I turned wondering as to where His 
flock finds its resting place. Very beautiful 
for situation is this twenty-third Psalm.- The 
Psalm before it begins with that dreadful cry, 
" My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken 
me ? " Here is the hill of Calvary, with its 
mocking crowd. They part his garments 
among them, and cast lots for his vesture. 

His sheep have come over Calvary. They 
have passed under the cross. Behind them 
rises that hill which forever breaks the fierce 
blasts that would beat upon us. " Being justi- 



Rest. 20 1 

fied by faith, we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ : M here is the calm, and 
overhead the blue sky where no storms 
gather. Then, immediately after the twenty- 
third Psalm, comes that which tells of the hill 
of Zion with its splendors and shouts of 
triumph. " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; 
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and 
the King of glory shall come in." So shel- 
tered lies the flock of the good Shepherd, 
betwixt Calvary and heaven, shut in from the 
angrier blasts and dwelling in a land that 
looks toward the sunny south. 

But many have come over the hill of Calvary 
who have never learned to lie down. The first 
essential of this blessed rest is an assurance of 
safety. The stranger startles the flock, the 
watch-dog frightens it, the howl of the wild 
beast scatters it in panting terror. The con- 
fidence of the first line is the key to all the 
gladness of the Psalm : " The Lord is my 
shepherd. " The whole song is born of assur- 
ance. Fear strikes all dumb, as when the 
hawk wheels overhead in the blue heavens 
and hushes instantly the music of the groves. 
Doubt spoils it all — " the little rift within the 



202 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

lute." Confidence, steadfast, unwavering con- 
fidence, is the very heart of this rest. There 
must be a great, deep, abiding conviction 
wrought into us that he is mine, and I am 
his. 

The sheep is a very timid creature, easily 
frightened ; it must trust fully before it can 
rest at all. Think of the sheep that is not 
quite sure whether it belongs to the shep- 
herd or not ! May it eat of the pasture ? And 
it ventures to snatch a doubtful nibble and 
looks up like a guilty thing. It hears the 
lion's roar, and bleats piteously, afraid that it 
has no helper. That sheep will not lie down. 

It scarcely needs any argument to prove 
that this full assurance of faith is meant for all 
of us. Doubt undoes all that He can give. 
It is not too much to say that he does not 
give us anything unless we can be sure that it 
is ours. What if one who calls himself my 
friend should ask me to his house, and wel- 
come me with many words, and entertain me 
with sumptuous show of hospitality, and give 
me a; thousand tokens of his regard. He bids 
me make myself at home, and hopes I shall 
be comfortable ; but as I am going to rest, he 



Rest, 203 

takes me aside. " This is a pleasant house, 
isn't it ? " 

" Very, indeed, " say I ; " most pleasant. 
The design and arrangements are perfect, the 
views are charming, the gardens delightful ; 
every thing is complete." 

" I am glad you like it ; I hope you will rest 
well ; " and then his voice sinks to a whisper, 
44 but there is just one thing I ought to men- 
tion : we are not quite sure about the foun- 
dations. " 

" Then, sir," I say indignantly, " you may 
depend upon it I am not going to stay here." 

Sleep ! I couldn't. Why, the man's wel- 
come to the place is cruel ; the entertainment 
is a hideous mockery ; the decorations and 
furniture are a madman's folly. No ; give me 
some poor cottage with many discomforts, but 
where I do know that the foundations are 
right, and I should be much better off. 

Be quite sure that the blessed Lord hath 
this gift for each of us — this golden clasp of all 
his gifts. " In whom ye also trusted," says 
St. Paul to the Ephesians, " after that ye 
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your 
salvation;" but that is not all: " in whom 



204 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

also after that ye believed ye were sealed with 
that Holy Spirit of promise which is the ear- 
nest of our inheritance." This blessed confi- 
dence toward God is a part of the gospel of 
our salvation. Go and ask for it boldly. 
Seek it confidently. " Ye have not received 
the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye 
have received the spirit of adoption, whereby 
we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bear- 
eth witness with our spirit that we are the 
children of God." 

Yet, note well, it is not what I am, but what 
he is, which is the source of confidence. This 
assurance, which is rest, comes from the 
character of the Shepherd. " He maketh me 
to lie down." A weak, or careless, or unskillful 
shepherd could not make his sheep rest in 
such blessed safety. The confidence which 
lies down sings of him, " He is my Shepherd, 
he leadeth me, I shall not want." 

Power, wisdom, love, these are the three 
great gifts and qualifications of the good 
shepherd. Power to defend and to deliver; 
wisdom to select and to guide and to restore ; 
love that never wearies, never forsakes, never 
turns aside forgetful of the flock. With us 



Rest. 205 

the shepherd is above all a man of peace ; but 
as he appears in the East it is as a strong man 
armed. He goes forth with his sheep as one 
who goes to war. A long gun is slung from 
the shoulder, a dagger and heavy pistols are 
thrust in the belt, and a light axe or iron- 
headed club in the hand. He must be as 
brave as he is strong, for often he has to fight 
with savage beasts of prey, as David did ; and 
when the robber band comes the good shep- 
herd does battle for his flock, and sometimes 
loses his life in guarding them. 

Come then, timid soul, think of the might 
of thy Shepherd. Well may we lie down at 
rest in the keeping of such a one as he is. 
Hear how Isaiah sings of his greatness: 

" He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: 
he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and 
carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead 
those that are with young. Who hath measured 
the waters in the hollow of his hand, . . . and 
weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills 
in the balance ? ... It is he that sitteth upon the 
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the 
heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out 



206 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

as a tent to d^vell in. . . . Lift up your eyes 
on high, and behold who hath created these 
things, that bringeth out their host by number : 
he calleth them all by names by the great- 
ness of his might, for that he is strong in power ; 
not one faileth. . . . Hast thou not known? 
hast thou not heard, that . . . the Lord, the 
Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, 
neither is weary ? there is no searching of 
his understanding. He giveth power to the 
faint ; and to them that have no might he 
increaseth strength/' 

How safe are they for whom he cares ! 
With what assurance of safety can they lie 
down in the blessedness of his keeping ! 

Then beside this description of his power 
set the picture of his love as we have it from 
himself: 

" I am the good shepherd : the good shep- 
herd giveth his life for the sheep. But he 
that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, 
whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf 
coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth ; 
and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth 
the sheep. ... I am the good shepherd, . . . 
and I lay down my life for the sheep." 



Rest. 207 

Look up to him, timid soul — was there ever 
such a one as he is ? For me he hath laid 
down his life. He hath bought me with a 
price — the price of his own precious blood. 
So dear am. I to his heart. And now with 
all his power he comes to care for me, and 
to lead me and deliver me. Here can I rest in 
blessed safety; "he maketh me to lie down." 

Then further needful to this rest is the con- 
stant presence of the shepherd. Many have 
but a dead Christ. He has laid down his life 
for them, and in his death they find their 
deliverance. Many have a far-off and glorified 
Christ, who is gone away up the high hill of 
Zion. These cannot rest. What of his power 
and his love if he is gone away ? What of 
that life if it only lit the world with its blaze 
of glorious brightness eighteen hundred years 
ago, and left to all the ages but the fading 
after-glow of the better times? If that is all, 
then call not the Church a bride ; she is a 
widow indeed ! Yet there is a kind of thought, 
not uncommon among Christians, that Christ 
has gone away, and sent the Holy Spirit to 
take his place. Is it so ? " It is expedient 
for you that I go away : for if I go not away, 



2o8 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if 
I depart, I will send him unto you." But 
why? "That ye may be strengthened with 
might by the Spirit in the inner man, that 
Christ may dwell in your heart." " Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world ! " The blessed Spirit comes to en- 
lighten the eyes of the heart that we may 
see him always, to open the ears of the heart 
that we may hear his voice and follow him, to 
bring us into a communion with him, con- 
stant, unbroken, more real, more intimate than 
was possible so long as he was here in his 
bodily presence. Now it is ours to know and 
to rejoice in the largest fulfillment of that 
ancient promise, " My presence shall go with 
thee, and I will give thee rest. " 

Our rest is in the complete abandonment of 
ourselves to him. He is mine, and I am his. 
He altogether mine, and all that he is, all that 
he has, all that he can be, and all that he 
can do, mine. And I altogether his. Out 
into all the past goes the hush of his gracious 
forgiveness, breathing over it a peace that 
cannot be broken. Close over me he standeth 
with his tender whisper, "Fear not;" ever 



Rest. 209 

caring for me, and caring for mc in every 

thing. On into the unknown he looketh. He 

planneth all, he provideth, he leadeth. So, 

compassed about with his favor as with a 

shield, " he maketh me to lie down. M 
14 



2io Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 



CHAPTER XII. 

TRUST, THE SECRET OF REST. 

My old college chum had dropped in to 
spend the evening with me — a jaunty, light- 
hearted fellow. We used at one time to meet 
daily, he having nothing particular to do, and 
I glad to have the loneliness of those days 
broken by his genial laugh and ready flow 
of conversation. But our ways had gone 
farther and farther apart, and though there 
was still all the old friendliness, yet there were 
few matters on which we touched with a com- 
mon interest. As for me, burdened with the 
care of a large district in a very poor neigh- 
borhood, my life was spent in trying to help 
many in a fierce struggle against want and 
temptation ; trying to arouse such a struggle 
in others who had never found any heart or 
hope to begin it, and in others still who had 
lost all the heart and hope with which they 
had once begun. 

We sat together forgetful of the time, for it 



Trust, the Secret of Rest. 2 1 1 

was an evening to enjoy an hour or two beside 
the fire ; and it was pleasant to live over 
again the old times and to trace the histories 
of companions and rivals in class lists and 
games. 

Then our conversation turned to more se- 
rious matters. Outside was a blustering win- 
ters night, with howling wind and beating 
rain, and we drew near the fire pitying the 
homeless and unsheltered, and wishing all 
the world could share the cosy comfort of my 
hearth. 

So the hours flew by until in upon us 
boomed the tones of the old cathedral clock 
as it struck twelve, swelling louder on an 
angry burst of wind, then faintly dying. 

" I must be off," said my friend, springing 
up from the depths of the easy-chair. u I 
didn't think it was so late." 

We lingered, standing in the hall to have 
another word about the matter we had been 
discussing, he thrusting himself into his great- 
coat while I talked. Then he stood at the 
door, and had the last word of the argument. 

" No, no," said he ; " better no God at all 
than a belief in hell. Good-night ! " 



212 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

Then the door was opened, and he stepped 
out into the blustering darkness. 

I shut the door with bolt and chain, and 
came back and sat by the fire. The words 
went ringing on in my mind, " Better no God 
at all than a belief in hell." And with them 
came back the thought of other words that he 
had spoken, plainly but not unkindly : " You 
accept a tradition, and are afraid to face what 
would disturb your creed ; " " You belong to 
a set, and drift with them in this as in other 
things ; " " Your life is so taken up in the 
hard practical matters of daily life that these 
distant and dreadful theories find no room in 
your thoughts/' 

There were many answers that lay on the 
surface. My friend, too, belonged to " a set," 
as he called it ; a set with whom religion was 
mostly a thing of tradition, or of argument 
only ; at least I knew that he had neither 
opportunity nor care to search into the matter 
as I had tried to do. The Bible was to him 
somewhat old-fashioned, and he was some- 
what impatient of its being summoned in evi- 
dence. " There are new lights," he said, " in 
which the age must read and interpret that 



Trust, the Secret of Rest. 2 1 3 

book." But the matter was far too deep and 
serious to be the mere subject of a logical 
conflict. It pressed upon my own soul, and 
demanded the answer that should satisfy my 
innermost conviction. 

u What attitude of rest or peace can any 
man find who holds a belief in hell ? " he had 
asked. 

" I can't tell you," I answered." But there 
is such an attitude, and I think I have found 
it." 

" No," said he, confidently ; " indifference, 
indolence, blindness, sleep, are the only things 
that make that possible." 

11 There is another, stronger and better 
than these," I had said : " a simple trust in 
God." 

Then as the fierce wind howled and moaned 
at the window, the chilling words of his reply 
swept over me again : " Better no God at all 
than a belief in hell." My New Testament 
lay within reach of me, and I took it up and 
turned over its pages. 

" I certainly accept this as the word of God," 
I said to myself, " and how can I do any thing 
else ? I find here One whom I cannot but 



214 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

love, and trust, and delight to reverence and 
serve as my Father. I find in its pages not a 
dead history, but a living Friend and Brother, 
who knows me as no other does, and who 
meets me in closest heart communion. I see 
him stooping to the lowest depth of poverty 
and sorrow, enduring every agony and shame 
that he may help men. In him all my power 
of trust rests with an unutterable confidence. 
I find in him the noblest, truest life of which I 
can conceive. I find in him a power that 
helps me to be like him in spite of my coarse 
selfishness. And in seeking to follow in his 
steps I find myself living a higher life than I 
can live in any other way. That nobody can 
make me doubt. 

" And yet, and yet," I said to myself, cau- 
tiously feeling for any way of escape that there 
might be, " I find in this same word, and from 
these gracious lips, utterances dark and terri- 
ble. He never spake harshly. He never 
spake hastily. He never stooped to invent any 
terrors by which to frighten men into being 
good. Yet he warns men of a wrath to come, 
and speaks of an everlasting punishment. 
Can I, dare I, brush all these aside lightly? 



Trust, the Secret of Rest. 2 1 5 

Or shall I accept the word and trust him to 
make it clear by and by ? " 

My Testament had opened at the page 
which of all others was perhaps most thumbed, 
and my eyes fell on the text that I had under- 
lined and surrounded with references : 

" God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
on him should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life." 

Yes, God was to me the infinitely good. 
Not one lay outside his love. Not one in all 
the world but that great love encompassed, 
like God's own air and sunshine. To me it 
would be the veriest hell to give up faith and 
trust in him. Life would then become the 
dreariest loneliness — a helpless burden, a hope- 
less struggle. Existence itself would have 
neither promise nor meaning. 

11 No ; nothing is better, nothing can be 
better than a whole-hearted trust in God," I 
said aloud. 

" Indifference, indolence, blindness," my 
friend had said. " Was it so ? " I asked my- 
self. "Was there some deficiency in me, 
some unsuspected hardness, grim and dread- 



216 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, 

ful, from which my friend was freed ? a horri- 
ble stony indifference to the fate of the lost ? " 
That could scarcely be. My friend himself 
was of all men the one who most often and 
most fiercely blamed me for my folly in sacri- 
ficing myself, as he said, "for such a hardened 
lot." My rooms, my position, my income, all 
were proof enough — perhaps more proof than 
I always cared for — that I loved my neighbor 
at least with a love that was not in word only. 

Again the storm burst with a fury that 
shook the house, and that moaned and howled 
about the place, and in upon me came the 
words, as if it were the message of the storm, 
" Better no God at all than a belief in hell." 

Then I sat thinking, wondering, question- 
ing, till I fell asleep and dreamed. . . . 

I was passing through a city where the 
people stood in knots and talked of some hor- 
rible outrage and murder. Men and women 
gathered at the narrow entry of their courts 
and told indignantly the rumors of the crime. 
Then I passed the building where the judge 
was sitting to try the prisoner whose case 
stirred all the city. 

It was pleasant to get away from these dark 



Trust, the Secret of Rest. 2 1 7 

things, outside the city gates — pleasant to 
leave the noise and crowd, and all the signs of 
this black crime. So I went on until before 
me lay a garden in all the rich beauty of the 
spring. 

Under the shade of a tree, its old twisted 
branches just tipped with the dainty young 
green leaves, sat a little maiden of some ten 
years arranging a bunch of flowers. She was 
singing gayly, staying a moment to turn the 
nosegay round and look at it, then singing 
on again as she took up another violet or 
primrose, and put in here and there a leaf of 
ivy or a fern. The light fell in between the 
young leaves in sunny patches on the mossy 
trunk of the tree, and touched the little maid- 
en's hair with gold. 

Then on his way there came one of the serv- 
ants, who carried a scythe in his hand. He 
crossed the lawn and set the scythe against 
the tree, and there he stayed watching the busy 
fingers and listening to the maiden's merry 
song. A sneer curled his lip and a dark 
frown gathered on his face as he stooped and 
picked a daisy and slowly pulled out its petals 
one by one, letting them fall at his feet. He 



2 1 8 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

leaned forward so that his shadow fell over 
her, and with a harsh voice that startled the 
singer he said, 

" Do you know what your father is going to 
do?" 

" No," said the little maiden, turning the 
sunny face up toward him. " What is he go- 
ing to do? " 

Then with a voice more harsh and grating, 
and a darker frown, 

u Going to hang that poor man that he 
tried in the court to-day," said the servant. 

" Hang him ! " she said, as the hands fell 
down at her side and the sunshine died. And 
she looked up with wondering eyes and 
parted lips. 

" Yes, going to hang him," said the man, 
putting his rough fingers grimly to his 
throat. " Going to put a rope, a hard rope 
that will hurt him dreadfully, right round his 
neck, and hang him." 

" My father is going to ? " cried the little 
maiden, bewildered. 

" Yes, your father," sneered the servant. 

Her cheek grew crimson and her eyes 
flashed fire. " My father never would ! " she 



Trust, the Secret of Rest. 219 

said indignantly, rising up and letting the 
flowers fall -unheeded to the ground. 

'• You will see, then/* said the servant. " I 
heard them say it myself." 

The sun was hidden ; the blue sky gone 
behind a bank of stormy cloud. The wind 
rose in fierce gusts howling about the garden, 
sweeping before it the fallen flowers. The 
little maiden with bitten lips and angry face 
went in and sat down in her room. 

" I am sure my father never, never would," 
she said. 

Then she leaned at the window and looked 
out over the garden. Beyond the walls rose 
the roofs of the grim prison. Slowly the 
anger died out, and all the face grew sad. 
With hands that hung down helplessly, and 
tearful eyes, she said to herself, " My father 
going to hang that poor man ! to hang him ! 
He never could ! " And the indignation 
touched her yet again for a moment, but 
almost at once it turned to grief. "And yet, 
and yet — poor man ! And my father going 
to hang him! O, why are there such dread- 
ful things as prisons and, and — " she shud- 
dered now and could not say the word. 



220 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

" Poor man ! " she said, " and he is only over 
there, and my father is going to — to hang 
him ! My father ! " 

And so she stood and looked out sorrow- 
ing. The sun was going down in a lurid sky. 
Great masses of black cloud hung overhead. 
The darkness just parted to show a blood- 
red streak shaped like a sword. The wind 
moaned and howled about the corners of the 
old house. 

" How dreadful ! " sighed the little maiden 
to herself; "my father going to hang him! 
Poor, poor man ! " . » * 

Then I saw myself in a large room where a 
grave man sat at dinner. A face noble and 
generous, that one could trust assuredly at 
once, with firmness and strength and earnest- 
ness in every look and tone and word, and 
over all a great benevolence. Beside him a 
chair was set, and plate and knife and fork, 
and as he finished dinner he turned to the 
servant. 

" Where is the little mistress to-night ? " 
he asked. " Isn't she well ? " 

Then presently in came the little maiden. 
She who was used to ^reet her father with 



Trust, the Secret of Rest. 221 

the sunny face and many words of welcome 
came, sad and with slow steps, without a 
word. 

" What is the matter, little one ? " said the 
father, holding out his hand to her. 

She took the hand and looked up in the 
father's face almost reproachfully. And then 
with a great sob and eyes that brimmed with 
grief, 

" Father, you are not going to — to hang 
him, are you ? Poor, poor man ! " 

Then the father's face grew sad as the 
maiden's own, and he laid the little head 
against himself and put his arm about her. 
Only the wind moaned at the window ; not 
another sound was heard for some min- 
utes. Then the father stroked the hair 
tenderly, and he turned the face up toward 
himself. 

" My child/' said he, " can you trust me ? " 

She looked up at him, and as she looked 
her whole face seemed to say, " What else 
could I do ? " She put her arm about his 
neck. 

11 Yes, father," she said, " of course I can." 

" Trust me to do what is right and kind 



222 Some Aspects of the Blessed Life. 

and good?" he asked, still stroking her hair 
tenderly. 

" Yes," said the maiden, laying her head 
against him as if she could rest there. 

" Then trust me still," said he, " and one 
day you will understand." . . . 

And then I awoke and thought of our 
childhood ; and I thought of faculties that 
may develop in us too, and reconcile a 
thousand things such as perplex and trouble. 

" Thank God," said I, " I am content to be 
a child ; to trust and wait." 



THE END. 



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